Unbridled Wonder
by Icy Mike Molson
Summary: One thief. One constable. One magical rod. Tierwaal may never be the same...(Finally done)
1. Foreword

** Author's Note**

Wizards of the Coast owns the general concept of Dungeons and Dragons, from which this story was devised. However, _The New World_ and its principal kingdoms of Mardan, Urhal, Utrecht, Tourant, the Island Duchies, Arnheim, Trzebin, and Argent Forest, are mine. Likewise, the characters, while ostensibly created through the use of the Dungeons and Dragons character generation rules, are also mine. While I am not completely averse to someone requesting to use _The New World_ as a backdrop for a campaign or story, ask my permission first. Chances are you'll have my blessing; after all, I'd be interested to see what someone can do with the political and social backdrop I've created. I won't tell you anything about The New World; that's for you to find out through the stories. However, since it may be confusing to some that see the weather getting colder as one moves south, I will mention that _The New World_ is set in the southern hemisphere.

Although it is the fourth story to take place in _The New World_ campaign setting, _Unbridled Wonder _moves away from the forests of western Tourant and Argent and the Khairathi Mountains to the coast or Utrecht. As such, it is a stand alone story, linked to my other works here only by the general campaign setting. Like the others, Unbridled Wonder is part of a continuing attempt to write a story for each of the _One Hundred Adventure Ideas_ found on page 138 of the _Dungeon Master's Guide_.

Since approximately half of this story is being written during my time in the Fire Academy, _Unbridled Wonder_ may be a little more… fluffy, I guess you would call it, than my other works. Basically, when I saw the idea in the Dungeon Master's Guide, I thought it would be fun to see what kind of damage I could do to a city with one thief, one constable, and one magic item. So while the fate of nations may not hang in the balance, I'm having a bit of fun writing it…


	2. A Distinct Lack of Forethought

**I**

"So, what is it?"

"This, dear Gerrit, is a Rod of Wonder," Sanna proclaimed, gesturing to the finely wrought bronze bar lying on the workbench in front of her. The elegant metal surface of the rod was intricately etched with runes and a delicate engraving of vines wrapping around the item's two and a half foot length, and the leaves had even been tinted a faint green. As always, Sanna had outdone herself in the rod's ornamentation, but the simple creation of a Rod of Wonder, an ultimately unpredictable magical wand, was about as defining of the wizard as the charming decorations. Gerrit, a wizard of no small magnitude himself, was one of four mages sharing the diamond shaped tower that pointed out of the center of the Magie Vierkant, a plaza devoted almost entirely to magic and home to more than a dozen spellcasters of varying strength in Utrecht's port city of Tierwaal, and he had known Sanna for almost a dozen years. Sanna, going on her fortieth summer, still managed to retain the looks and fitness of woman nearly a decade younger, with flowing golden blond hair and sparkling blue eyes. Although she was not the most beautiful woman in Tierwaal, Gerrit had initially been very taken with her when they had met, but his appreciation of her looks and amazing magical talent had quickly been tempered by Sanna's equally astounding absentmindedness. For one to be so intelligent, and yet so unable to use common sense…

"A Rod of Wonder," Gerrit echoed, forcing a smile onto his thickly bearded face. Approaching his forty-sixth summer, Gerrit's black hair and beard were just beginning to show a few streaks of gray, but his blue eyes, a similarity he shared with Sanna, were as keen and sharp as ever. Gerrit spent another moment smoothing out his unadorned, dark gray robes as he looked back to Sanna's proud smile. "I'm sure it… I'm sure it works exactly as it should," the wizard said, deciding not to pry too far into Sanna's reasoning for creating the item.

"I am too!" Sanna exclaimed enthusiastically, snatching the rod from her workbench and twirling it in her hand. Gerrit nearly ducked as the tip of the bar ended up pointing at his head, but through sheer exertion of will he managed to remain calm and smiling. "Although I haven't gone through too many tests with it, I am certain it will perform perfectly. I mean, look at these engravings! It's my best work yet!"

Gerrit cringed at that. Sanna's last "best work yet" had nearly sunk their tower through the cobbled square of the Magie Vierkant.

"Why don't we put the rod back down," Gerrit suggested, far too aware of the fact that rods of wonder occasionally threw out lightning bolts and fireballs upon uttering the command word. The last thing Gerrit wanted to see was one of the other houses in the Magie Vierkant demolished when a destructive bolt of magic arced out of one of the many windows in Sanna's spacious workshop.

"I'm curious," Sanna said. Those two simple words had often led to fires, sudden storms, swarms of insects, or sometimes even downfalls of brass buttons. "I wonder what this will do."

Gerrit did not even have time to prepare for the sudden action. A cloud of bluish gas issued from the rod and surrounded the wizard in a heartbeat. Gerrit stumbled backward, choking on the gas as he tried to fan it away with his hands, but within moments the blue vapors had disappeared without seeming to have any effect.

"What was that?" Gerrit asked quickly. The wizard glanced around the workshop, searching for any sort of disturbance, but nothing seemed out of place.

"Um…" Sanna started, a sheepish smile on her face. Gerrit turned back to her.

"Um, what?" the wizard asked. Sanna stifled a giggle. "What happened, Sanna?" Gerrit demanded.

"You… you um…" the sorceress started. Gerrit looked quickly down at his hands, and found that they had turned a deep indigo.

"What have you done?" Gerrit demanded. Sanna stifled another giggle as Gerrit rolled up his sleeves. His arms had also turned the same dark shade of blue.

"Sorry?" Sanna asked, still unable to hide all of her smile.

"You turned me blue!" Gerrit shouted angrily. "How in Pelor's name am I supposed to go out in public like this!"

"It… you look good, it complements your eyes," Sanna tried, backing up a step from the enraged wizard.

"Sanna, I'm indigo!" Gerrit roared. Sanna nodded, her smile finally fading away as she backed up to one of the windows of her workshop. "It's permanent, Sanna! You turned me blue for life!"

"You can reverse curses," Sanna observed, growing more timid in the face of her enraged friend.

"That's not the point!" Gerrit shot back. "I am supposed to be at the Council of Mages tomorrow, and now I have to spend my time reversing this curse instead of preparing for it! Sanna, you idiot! What were you thinking? What is the command word?"

"Um…" Sanna began hesitantly, placing the rod on the windowsill behind her. "I… I thought… 'wonder' would be a good command word."

"It's a Rod of Wonder, and you made the command word 'wonder'!" Gerrit bellowed. Sanna nodded meekly.

"I… I'm sorry," the sorceress said, dropping her head as she finally seemed to realize her error. The devastated look on the sorceress' face was enough to stop Gerrit's tirade; there was still something about Sanna that could end his rages when she put on her hurt face. "I'll… I'll help you get rid of the curse."

"No, please no," Gerrit replied, unwilling to see himself turned any other shades of color before regaining his normal pigment. "I'm sorry I yelled at you, Sanna. But you have to think a little more before you make these things. A Rod of Wonder ends up being more trouble than it's worth, and a command word of "wonder"? Come on, Sanna. You have to be smarter than that."

"I'll try, Gerrit," Sanna promised, folding her hands contritely in front of her.

"Okay," Gerrit said, turning to the stairs that led down from Sanna's workshop. "I'm going to go try get rid of this… blue. You put that rod somewhere and don't take it out again until we decide how to fix it. Okay?"

"Gerrit, please, I'll help with the curse!" Sanna said, leaving the wand on the windowsill and rushing after Gerrit.

"I can do it myself," Gerrit said curtly, disappearing down the spiraling steps. Sanna rushed after him, ready to make any kind of reparations for her error.

She had only just disappeared from the workshop when the rod of wonder rolled off of the windowsill and fell to the street below.


	3. A Lucky Bounce

**II**

"Fourteen silver. Six new ships in, including one from Duchy Astaine, and all you can get is fourteen silver?"

"But the Urhalians were thugs!" Annika explained hastily, backing up against the wall of the Broken Harpoon's filthy common room. "And van Erison-"

"I really don't care about van Erison, or any dockside constable for that matter," Bartel interrupted, cutting off the young thief in front of him. This sob story was getting far too common from Annika, and the gang leader was rapidly growing tired of it. "We have schedules to maintain and dues to pay. And nothing gets paid with excuses, Annika."

"I… I'm sorry," Annika faltered, her dark eyes darting around the dingy, bleached wood floors and walls of tavern in anxiety. Bartel finally looked up from the well worn surface of his favorite corner table at the Broken Harpoon, appraising the girl in front of him. Like most of his conscripted orphans, Annika could not be certain of her age, but Bartel figured her to be somewhere between her sixteenth and eighteenth winter. With a short, slim frame, dark eyes and curly brown hair, the young thief was actually quite attractive despite the rags she had cobbled together into clothing, but Annika had to be possessed of worse luck than any other cutpurse on the docks of Tierwaal. The beginning of trade season was usually a boon to the thieves of Tierwaal; for Annika, it only seemed to make things worse. "I… I don't have all of the money," Annika said nervously. "Please, just give me one more day."

"Now look, Annika," Bartel stated, remaining calm and even. "I took you in. I was willing to protect you from the other gangs that roam Haven-straat. But if this is how you repay me, I may end up turning you back over to Espen. And you don't want that, do you?"

"N-no," Annika stammered. Bartel leaned back slightly, satisfied with his threat. While Bartel truly had no intentions of just handing his conscripts over to the sadistic leader of the Wharf Rats, the most powerful gang on the docks of Tierwaal, the mere mention of Espen's name was enough to frighten the younger thieves of the port city. Of course, if he could get a younger orphan, one with more talent and less bad luck, out of the deal he would consider a trade, but for the moment Annika was his and his alone. "Please, Bartel," Annika begged, only a heartbeat short of dropping to her knees. "One more day."

"Give me what you got," Bartel said, putting his hand out and waiting expectantly. Annika hesitantly handed over most of the coins she had scraped together the previous night. "All of it, Annika," Bartel prompted.

"I… need at least one silver," Annika said quietly, still holding the last ten dingy copper pieces in her hand. "I… I have to pay Janson rent, and… I have no money for food."

"That's not really my concern," Bartel said, waiting patiently with his hand still outstretched. "You still owe me eleven silver after this."

Annika hesitated a moment longer, but finally handed over her last ten copper pieces to her gang leader. Bartel smiled as he added the assorted coins to his belt pouch.

"Now you're lucky I'm a generous man, Annika," Bartel said, looking back to his conscript. "You better have the rest of the money for me tomorrow at this time, or I'll be taking the clothes from your back and selling you to those Urhalian thugs you're so afraid of. A cute little dark eyed girl like you? I bet I could get at least five silver from each of them. And there are thirty of them."

"I… I'll get what you need," Annika promised, the last bit of color draining from her cheeks at the prospect of being turned over to the Urhalian merchant crew. Bartel smiled at her reaction; once again, the gang leader had no intention of losing a conscript to such a one time deal, but it certainly put a healthy dose of fear into the girl. "I'll have it tomorrow, I promise!"

"I hope you do," Bartel said, folding his arms across his chest as he glared at the girl. "Because if you don't, thirty Urhalian sailors will be more than happy to help you raise the money, among other things."

"It won't come to that," Annika promised, hurrying toward the door. "I'll get the money!"

* * *

The sun was just making its way overhead as Annika raced out into the late morning streets of Tierwaal from the Broken Harpoon. The thief was already tired from a difficult night; fourteen silver had been difficult to come by despite the influx of spring traders, and the first wave of new shipping brought out every gang of thieves and cutthroats in the city's dock districts. Espen's gang, the Wharf Rats, controlled much of the theft and extortion on the docks with an iron fist, threatening smaller gangs like Bartel's into staying away from the choicest picks. Annika, one of the lowest members in one of the lower gangs on Haven-straat, the dockside street that was home to so many warehouses, inns, taverns, and boarding houses turned brothels, rarely had a good choice in the way of marks, and she had considered herself lucky to come away with even the fourteen silver that Bartel had taken from her. A promising start fleecing a pair of Mardanian cloth merchants had quickly devolved into a frantic dash from the Urhalian sailors, who had been all too willing to take her ill gotten gains and then drag her back aboard their ship. After she managed to escape the sailors, her attempt to fleece a drunken young merchant of a pouch that had likely contained at least a gold piece in assorted coin was foiled when Zarne van Erison, one of Tierwaal's dockside constables, had seemingly appeared out of nowhere to catch her in the act. Van Erison, as usual, had let her go with a warning, but the damage had already been done, and the drunken merchant had disappeared into the darkness. The rest of the night found Annika one step behind the other thieves on the docks or one step ahead of the infrequent dock patrols conducted by the city's constables. Now Annika was in the worst bind of her young life, staring at the horrifying prospect of being turned over to an entire ship's crew in order to recover the money she owed to her gang leader.

Annika stopped in the middle of Haven-straat for a long moment, looking first to the wood and stone warehouses and the wide alleyways between them that led to the water. Between the warehouses she could see the hulls of the various cargo ships from Urhal, Mardan, and even as far away as Tourant, while a handful of masts peeked over the two or three story structures where she could not see the vessels themselves. She thought first of stowing away on a ship and trying to escape from Bartel, but she swiftly disregarded such an absurd idea. If she was caught during the journey, she would fare no better at sea than she would with Bartel come the dawn. Regardless of how she fared at sea, however, Annika had never even been past the walls and docks of Tierwaal, and could not be certain that any other city would offer her a better chance to find a home. The same challenge would prevent her from leaving by land; Apelwaal or Zaandam were not far away on the peninsula that made up the nation of Utrecht, but if either city was anything like Tierwaal Annika would find herself in the same situation that she was currently suffering.

Slowly the thief turned away from the waterfront to the buildings on the other side of Haven-straat. Inside the Broken Harpoon, Bartel was sitting alone in the common room, drinking an early morning ale where he could watch Annika's tortured movements on the street. To either side of the Broken Harpoon's three story, gray stone façade, narrow alleys ran between the building to Lantaarn-straat and the rest of the city inland. The alleys were just wide enough for two people to fit side by side at ground level, but higher up the buildings seemed to lean in over the walkways, creating dim recesses even during the middle of the day. Much of Tierwaal west of the Tierwaal-vaart, the canal that separated the main city from the villas of the rich and the towers of the most powerful mages, seemed to be built in the same claustrophobic manner, creating a thousand hideaways for a careful thief. Quickly Annika hurried into the nearest alley, only too eager to get away from Bartel's amused gaze. By the time she reached Lantaarn-straat she was almost at a run, turning quickly east and praying that she would come across an early morning shopper with a heavy belt pouch and little common sense, but by the time she had reached the white, arched bridge that continued Lantaarn-straat across the Tierwaal-vaart, she had only found a handful of beggars and one or two wary merchants that seemed to realize the young thief's intentions.

Annika stood at the edge of the bridge for a moment, looking up the faint hill that led to the wealthiest section of Tierwaal. Two city watchmen, well armed with long spears and chain mail armor beneath their black and green tunics, stood at the far end of the bridge, watching the young thief as she hesitated on the poor side of the city. While the wealthy section of the city might have offered her the money she needed to break even with Bartel, the risks accompanying the journey hardly made the reward worth it. Tierwaal's wealthy section was heavily guarded against the thieves of the docks, and the two armed guards watching Annika were only the most obvious deterrents. None of the watchmen that patrolled the villas would be as forgiving as van Erison or the other dock constables if they caught her in the act, and indeed only the most daring and talented thieves ever even attempted a heist in the villas.

"What am I going to do?" Annika asked herself out loud, turning away from the bridge and starting south along Vaart-straat. The street she followed ran a winding course between the Tierwaal-vaart on her left and the looming, peaked roof buildings on her right for only a short distance before it ran into the majestic Magie Vierkant, the plaza where so many wizards made their homes or offered their wares. The center of the plaza was dominated by the two story Boekerij-Tovenaar, one of two magical libraries in Tierwaal and the only one open to any but the most powerful wizards and scholars, while small shops offering enchantments and spells lined the buildings that enclosed the square. Annika barely noticed the elegant white stone library or the diamond shaped tower of spiraling black and gray stone as she passed them, her eyes on the dusty cobbles as she tried to think of a way to scrape together enough money to save herself from Bartel's plans to rent her out to the crew of an Urhalian merchant ship.

A metallic clank rang off of the cobbles directly in front of her. Annika's eyes immediately went to the two and a half foot bronze scepter that had seemingly dropped out of the sky, already rolling along the slanted cobbles to the Tierwaal-vaart. Instantly realizing the value of such a work of art, or at least of the raw value of the bronze, the thief was after the item in a heartbeat, diving along the stones and grabbing the rod before it could escape her grasp. Rolling up to one knee, Annika smiled in relief as she looked over the finely wrought rod, engraved with runes and vines from end to end. The simple artistic value of the rod would save her from Bartel, but her fears of her gang leader's reprisals were quickly lost as she realized that the rod had to have some kind of magical power. After all, it had fallen from the sky, right in the middle of the Magie Vierkant, as if Pelor himself had answered her prayers…

"I wonder what this does," Annika said quietly, turning the rod over in her hands.

A sudden, intense flash went off around her.

Annika jumped and nearly dropped the rod as she was engulfed by the flash, but after a long moment nothing else seemed to happen. Annika looked around, checking the ground around her, the people walking through the square, and even the sky, but nothing seemed to have changed from the flash of light. In fact, Annika seemed to be the only one who had even noticed the flash of light; all around her the early morning traffic filtering through the Magie Vierkant continued on its way without thinking twice of the sudden sunburst. Annika turned to one man that was walking directly towards him, but before she could ask if he had noticed the light flash he walked right into her and knocked her to the ground. Before she could scramble out of the way, the man tumbled on top of her, pinning her to the ground.

"Get off of me!" Annika shouted, shoving the man to one side with all the strength she could muster. The surprised man stumbled to one knee, looking around as if he had no idea where of the thief's presence. "What are you, blind?"

"I could see you a lot better if you weren't playing with invisibility spells!" the man snapped, finally getting to his feet. Annika's antagonist looked around him for a moment before swatting at the air with one hand. "Don't blame me for your stupid spellcasting, apprentice!"

Annika froze as she heard the man's words and noticed his reactions. She was invisible! He had never even seen her! The angry man spat out a few more curses before continuing on his way, but Annika barely heard him as she thought of the possibilities. An invisible thief would be nearly unstoppable! While the rod alone would not make her able to steal from the very richest properties in the villa district, Annika would have free run of the docks! She would be able to pay off Bartel in no time and maybe even pull together enough money to buy her own rooms!

A smile was rapidly coming to Annika's face as she quickly disappeared back in the direction of Haven-straat, already contemplating the magnificent rewards she would be able to reap with her newfound magical rod.


	4. Misfire

**III**

The first spring trading season had brought over a dozen new ships to Tierwaal's harbor, and in the light of the moon several standards could be seen fluttering in the breeze on the moored merchant ships. Just as varied as their home ports were the cargoes they carried; tobacco, cotton, and spices from Urhal, wool and flax from Mardan, wood furniture and copper from Tourant, and glassware that would be taken from Utrecht to the other nations. Even the occasional magical item, created by the wizards of Tierwaal for clients in distant cities, found their way into the warehouses, kept under heavy guard and additionally protected by wards and spells.

Annika, however, cared very little for the cargoes that the ships carried. Pirates might have been interested in a ship's hold full of spices or copper, but all Annika really needed was a handful of gold coins and perhaps a few small items of jewelry. One good night could get her back into Bartel's good graces, pay off the debts she had accumulated trying to stay out of the winter snows and rains, and maybe even buy her some new clothes to replace the tattered, dirty rags she currently wore. Moored along the pier in front of her, the Urhalian merchant vessel that had arrived the previous day floated serenely in the light of the half moon that had risen over Tierwaal, her night watch completely uninterested in anything more than their pipes or wineskins as they sat on the pier supports. Somewhere inside that ship was a heavy pay chest, enough to pay thirty Urhalian sailors or allow Annika a chance to free herself from the harbor gangs. The thief cautiously edged her way closer to the pier, keeping hidden behind the wall of one of the many dockside warehouses as she drew her new rod from the folds of her ragged cloak. With a bit of a smile, Annika raised the rod, pointing it at the Urhalian ship.

"I wonder what this does," Annika said smugly.

This time, there was no flash when she spoke. For a moment the thief hesitated, not knowing what had happened, but her confusion turned to shock as she noticed a large, dark patch spreading rapidly along the cobbles of the docks. Cautiously the thief lowered herself to one knee, until she could clearly see what it was growing up from the cobbled street.

"Grass?" Annika said, feeling the lush new growth with the tips of her fingers. The thief stood up as she watched the patch of grass take over the dockside alley, her shock turning quickly to frustration. "What's going on? I don't need grass! I need to be invisible!"

The rod in her hand gave her no answer.

"I wonder what this does!" Annika repeated forcefully, raising the rod to bang it against her free hand.

A deafening boom rocked the waterfront as a ball of incandescent fire erupted from the tip of the rod. The sudden blast of heat and sound knocked Annika back on the ground as a huge fireball arced up into the sky over the harbor. For a long moment the thief's dark eyes remained locked on the fireball, watching as her errant spell reached its zenith and began to descend.

"No, no, no!" Annika shouted, jumping back to her feet as she saw the fireball's inevitable destination. "No, turn, go out, something, anything!"

The fireball did not die, or turn. Instead it impacted with the mainmast of the Urhalian merchant ship, detonating in a brilliant plume of white fire. As Annika watched helplessly, the fire quickly spread to include the furled sails on the mast and dropped embers to the deck below. Annika watched in horror as the night watch scrambled to try to find some way to stop the fire burning through the rigging, but quickly the thief noticed one of the Urhalians pointing frantically at her and shouting in his own language. The thief hesitated only another second on the dock before she turned and sprinted into the darkness, praying that the Urhalian watchman had not seen more than a shadow in the alley.

* * *

Haven-straat was a notoriously dangerous place after the sun set, but thankfully, for once it seemed like it would be a peaceful night.

With half of his shift over, Zarne van Erison was finally beginning to relax as he turned the corner of Zilveren-straat and found himself on Haven-straat for the third time that night. His typical tour included four circuits of the dockside streets, walking west to east along Haven-straat and coming back to his beginning point one block up along the comparatively well lit Lantaarn-straat. Both roads were tightly packed with inns, taverns, flophouses, and cheap rooms where sailors and shoremen alike made their homes or rented quarters while their ships remained in harbor, and most nights saw at least a handful of brawls as the inhabitants became more and more inebriated. Somehow, his first two circuits had found either quiet taverns or another constable already on scene to control the fights that had erupted. As Zarne began to pass one particularly quiet inn, the constable stopped and smoothed out the forest green tunic he wore over his chain shirt as his hazel eyes swept over the remarkably passive tap room.

"Maybe I will get through the night without any bruises," Zarne decided with a bit of a smirk. Satisfied with his night for the first time in months, the constable turned his face to the north, letting the breeze blowing in off the water tousle his short, coarse black hair as he took a moment to enjoy the night air.

A dull boom suddenly sounded off of the docks. Above the waterfront a large ball of fire momentarily came into view, arcing up into the sky and descending rapidly out of sight. A second explosion followed almost immediately after the fireball disappeared behind the low rooftops, casting a dull yellow glow back above the warehouses. As Zarne stared for a moment in astonishment at the spectacle, a half dozen bar patrons crammed together at the doors as they tried to see what had just occurred.

"What was that?" one of the patrons asked, seeing the black and green striped cloak that marked Zarne as a constable.

"Get back inside!" Zarne ordered, quickly starting towards the explosions. Although he had no idea what he would find on the other side of the warehouses, it was his job to keep order on the docks. The constable crossed Haven-straat at a full sprint, his hand already dropping to the long sword hanging on his belt as he turned into the alleys leading to the waterfront.

He had only taken one step into the darkened alley when he crashed into a far smaller figure rushing away from the docks. The impact and suddenness of the collision sent both Zarne and his opposite tumbling to the ground in a tangle of arms, legs, and a metallic ringing as the newcomer's weapon clattered off of the cobbles. Quickly Zarne turned and found the haft of the metal object, but at the same time his opponent also grabbed the weapon by the other end.

"Let go!" a young, female voice shrieked frantically. Zarne yanked the weapon forward with all of his might, dragging a young girl into his shoulder and blasting the wind from her lungs.

"Annika?" Zarne asked, finally seeing his "attacker" in the light of the inns on Haven-straat. The teenage thief's curly brown hair had formed a curtain in front of her face, but Annika nonetheless fought desperately against the constable's grip even as she choked for breath.

"Van Erison?" Annika exclaimed, finally managing to push her unruly hair out of her face. The thief's dark eyes shone with fear as she looked up at the constable, but her struggle ended only momentarily before she tried again to free herself with all her strength.

"Annika, what happened?" Zarne demanded, grabbing her wrist and trying to shake her free of her weapon. Able to see more clearly, the constable found the metal object to be an ornately engraved bronze rod, maybe a foot and a half in length. The sight of the rod and Annika's panic stricken face began to fall into place with the sudden explosions…

"Please let me go it wasn't my fault I swear if they find out they'll kill me!" Annika blurted out, almost too quickly for Zarne to follow.

"Annika, slow down!" Zarne demanded, shoving the thief against one wall to hold her still. Still the thief tried everything she could to free herself, even landing a vicious kick to the constable's knee. Grunting with pain and nearly losing his balance, Zarne shifted himself enough to fall into Annika rather than away, nearly crushing her against the wall as he tried to regain his footing. "Annika, I can't help you if you keep fighting me!"

More voices could be heard approaching rapidly from the waterfront. Zarne turned quickly to see a half dozen men armed with clubs or short, heavy bladed swords charging into the alley.

"That's her!" the man in the lead shouted, pointing with his sword at the trapped thief. "Hold her!"

"Let me go they'll kill me!" Annika screamed, clawing at Zarne's arms and kicking fiercely again.

"She is attacker!" another of the apparent sailors shouted in horribly accented Utrecht. "You hold her!"

"I wonder what this does!" Annika suddenly shouted. Zarne turned back to her, growing more and more confused by the second, but before he could figure out the cryptic statement something slammed into his face.

Zarne tumbled to the ground under the impact of the sudden assault. The constable threw his hands up to shield his face, but even as he did so he finally saw what had hit him. Enormous butterflies and moths in a rainbow of colors were swarming through the alley, knocking over everyone in their path. Zarne quickly rolled to his stomach and turned on Annika, but the thief was already back on her feet and trying to shove her way through the mess of butterflies that she had created.

"Annika, get back here!" the constable demanded, jumping to his feet. He had only just stood up when the butterflies swarmed over him again, knocking him back into the wall and dragging him away from the thief in their last flight to escape the dingy alley. By the time the horde of insects had lifted, Annika had managed to flee into the night.

"Where is girl?" one of the sailors bellowed, staggering back to his feet and swatting away a last brightly colored butterfly. "Where is girl?"

"What happened?" Zarne demanded, stepping into the sailors' path before they could spill out into Haven-straat.

"She eat our ship!" another of the sailors exclaimed in a heavy Urhalian accent. Zarne opened his mouth to speak, but found himself unable to respond to the bizarre accusation.

"She… ate your sheep?" the constable tried.

"She eat our ship!" the Urhalian repeated. The sailors stopped for a moment, looking to each other and talking quickly in their own language. Finally, the original speaker turned back to Zarne, bringing his anger under control. "She… burn? Burn our ship!"

"She burned your ship?" Zarne concluded.

"Yes, fire on ship!" another of the sailors confirmed. "Fire ball, fall on ship, burn ship!"

"A fireball?" Zarne repeated. Whatever Annika had found, it was certainly causing a lot of problems.

"We want her!" a third sailor shouted. "She pay for burn ship!"

"Go back to your ship," Zarne ordered, remaining in the path of the irate sailors. "I am a constable, and I will find the girl. Once she is found, she is to be tried in the courts, not lynched on the docks."

"She is attacker!" the first Urhalian shouted. "She try to kill us!"

"And she will face the magistrate!" Zarne countered boldly, locking angry gazes with the Urhalian sailors. "You men go back to your ship and let the magistrate handle this!"

"You protect her!" the Urhalian sailor snarled, stepping to within an inch of the constable. Zarne refused to back down. "We kill you too!"

"Six of you will most likely kill me," Zarne said evenly, pulling his dagger from his belt and jabbing the Urhalian in the stomach. The sailor glanced down at the blade, losing some of his courage. "Rest assured though, you'll be in the Abyss to greet me when I get there."

The Urhalian hesitated for a long moment, glancing from the dagger to Zarne's unflinching hazel eyes. Finally, the sailor backed up a step.

"You find her, bring her before magistrate," the man said angrily. "You punish her!"

"And you go back to your ship," Zarne said. Slowly the Urhalians turned and started back to the docks, reluctantly obeying the constable's order. Zarne watched the sailors leave for only a moment, making certain that they indeed had no further plans to scours the docks for the young thief, before he quickly turned and hurried into the middle of Haven-straat. The time he had lost arguing with the Urhalians had cost him the chance to catch Annika; the young thief was nothing if not a fast runner, and she had long since disappeared into the darkness along the waterfront. With a final curse and a kick at the cobbles, Zarne started back along his patrol route, trying to figure out where the thief might have gone.


	5. Shifting Friends

**IV**

"Bartel!"

"I hope you have my money, Annika," Bartel said simply as he continued to count silver pieces at his back table in the Broken Harpoon. Already the gang leader had made six neat stacks of coins in front of him, and a disorganized pile of silver and copper still lay on the table before him. For once, his idiot thieves, with the obvious exception of Annika, had performed well, and the take displayed a good night of thievery. Annika skidded to a stop in front of the gang leader's table, barely catching her breath before she began.

"Bartel, they want to kill me!" the thief blurted out. Bartel jumped up in surprise, spilling a neat pile of silver across the table. If Annika had led a rival gang right to him…

"Who?" the gang leader demanded, drawing the daggers concealed beneath the sleeves of his tunic. For the moment no one seemed to be immediately behind his errant thief, but too many times appearances were deceiving.

"It wasn't my fault!" Annika exclaimed, practically throwing herself at Bartel as he scanned the common room for hidden enemies. "I was trying to get onto the Urhalian ship for their pay chest, but then the rod didn't work like it was supposed to and the fireball exploded in the rigging and-"

"What in the Abyss are you talking about?" Bartel asked, grabbing Annika by the shoulders and shaking her roughly. "What fireball? What rod?"

"This!" Annika replied hastily, thrusting a short bronze staff into Bartel's chest. "It worked once, but then it just started going crazy and-"

"Then keep it away from me!" Bartel interrupted quickly, shoving the thief away from him even as he backed off a step. "What are you thinking? You brought me a cursed wand!"

"Please, Bartel, you have to help me!" Annika pleaded. "They'll kill me if they find me! And van Erison knows about it too!"

"Van Erison saw you?" Bartel asked, his head already swimming. This one stupid little girl was about to tear down everything he had worked to achieve over the last two years…

"Bartel, please!" Annika begged. On the verge of tears, the thief dropped to her knees in front of the gang leader. "I'll do anything!"

"Damn right you will," Bartel snapped. The gang leader still had no idea how to handle the bewildering situation, but for the moment he needed to distance himself from Annika before anyone could see the two of them talking together. "Get into the storeroom, and stay well out of sight. In the morning, I'll decide what to do with you, but for now if you even show your face at the keyhole I'll cut your throat!"

"Thank you! Bartel, thank you!" Annika exclaimed, leaping to her feet and wrapping the gang leader in a tight embrace. Bartel roughly elbowed her away. "I can pay what I owe with this rod!"

"No! By the Abyss no!" Bartel retorted, practically jumping away from the magical item. "That thing has done enough damage already! In the morning that goes in the harbor! Now get into the storeroom!"

"Thank you again," Annika said, finally calming down as she moved quickly behind the bar. Bartel followed her back as he pulled a small key ring from his belt pouch, cursing under his breath as he roughly sorted through the keys for the one that would open the storeroom door. Bartel's first instinct was to turn the stupid girl over to van Erison or one of the other dockside constables and be rid of her; such a foolish act as setting a ship on fire and then being spotted by the crew was a disaster. As the gang leader turned back into the small alcove behind the serving area where a simple, aged door led into the cellar, however, a plan formed in his mind. With an almost imperceptible grin Bartel opened the door, but by the time he turned back to Annika the smile had long since disappeared.

"We'll sort this out in the morning," Bartel stated simply, gesturing to the inky darkness of the cellar. "You stay down there for the night, though, and don't come out for anyone or anything. Understand?"

"Yes," Annika said, though her dark eyes were fixed on the impenetrable blackness inside the door. "Um…"

"Here," Bartel said, taking a candle from its sconce behind the serving area and roughly shoving the taper into her hand. "Happy now?"

"Yes," Annika replied hesitantly. "Thank you, Bartel. I'm so sorry about this."

"Get in there," Bartel said. "We'll sort it out in the morning."

Annika nodded, and slowly descended the steps to the dank storeroom below. As she reached the last step, Bartel shut the door behind her and twisted the key in the lock again.

"So pretty, and yet so stupid," the gang leader grumbled as he turned away from the door.

* * *

Annika stood at the bottom of the storeroom steps for a long moment, wishing that the sputtering candle that Bartel had given to her threw out more light than it did. The meager illumination did not even reach the far walls of the musty cellar, and in the darkness she could hear the occasional squeaks of rats as they scurried between the kegs of ale and wine. Of all the foul creatures in the world, rats were what Annika feared most; the rodents had been a constant menace to her as an orphan trying to survive between the warehouses on the waterfront, and even know the mere thought of rats was enough to fill her with dread. Slowly Annika backed up the steps, preferring to spend the night as close to the door as possible rather than face the rats somewhere in the darkness. Carefully the thief set her taper on the step below her, dripping some wax onto the step to make certain that the candle would not fall over during the night. With her candle set, Annika leaned carefully back against the door, one eye still watching the darkness below her in case an inquisitive rat should try to climb the steps and investigate the paltry light.

"Ernst," Annika heard Bartel say. Although his voice was low, the gang leader must have still been in the alcove.

"Yes, Bartel?" Ernst asked in his small, frightened voice. Ernst was even younger than Annika, and Bartel often bullied the boy ruthlessly.

"I want you to go to the Urhalian ship down the docks," Bartel instructed quietly. He was moving away from the door, but Annika could still hear him as he spoke. "I want you to tell the sailors there that I have the person that tried to burn their ship. Don't tell them she's here, but tell them that I'm interested in negotiating a bounty for her capture."

"But… but Bartel, you… wasn't that Annika?" Ernst inquired timidly. Annika's eyes were already wide in the darkness as she listened in on the conversation, terrified at the thought of being turned over to the Urhalians.

"Yes it was," Bartel confirmed, his voice rising slightly in anger. "And unless you want to be her accomplice in that stupid girl's attack, you'd better get right over to them and tell them that I want to negotiate with them!"

"But…" Ernst faltered. Annika closed her eyes as she fought back tears; Ernst was a good kid, a victim of circumstance like many of Bartel's other conscripted thieves, but he was far too frightened of Bartel to refuse the order. "I'll go right away," the boy said, as if on cue. She could hear his quiet footfalls as he hurried through into the common room for the door, ready to bring the Urhalians right back to her. After a long moment she could hear Bartel leaving the alcove, but the gang leader's naturally quiet gait made it impossible to tell if he had left the Broken Harpoon.

Annika finally stood up on the steps, wiping away tears as she looked at the door above her. The situation might have seemed hopeless to her, but the thief was not about to sit and wait for the Urhalians to take their vengeance on her for a simple accident on the docks. Slowly Annika leaned in close to the door and strained her ears, but she could hear nothing in the common room to indicate anyone's presence.

Annika took a step back on the stairs and hefted her rod, but before she pointed it at the door she reconsidered her initial plan of escape. The rod had been erratic at best, and the sudden thought of burning herself to a crisp with another fireball kept her from uttering the command words to the rod. Shaking her head to accentuate her disapproval of her plan, Annika tucked the rod into her belt and removed her lock picks from their pouch inside the hem of her ragged blouse. Annika was no expert on locks, but her slight skill and the lock's simple mechanism made the thief's first attempt at escape a success. Slowly she pushed the door open, and carefully peeked out into the alcove.

No one was standing in the alcove, or the serving area beyond it. Cautiously Annika slipped out of the cellar and up against the wall to the common room, glancing around the corner to check for any sign of Bartel. Lit only by a couple of smoke stained lanterns, the common room was silent and still, completely devoid of life. Bartel must have gone out somewhere to prepare for Ernst's return with the Urhalians. Quickly Annika started into the tap room, eager to disappear into the night before Bartel realized that she had escaped.

A sudden crack sounded behind her. Annika bolted without even hazarding a glance over her shoulder, but before she could take a single step Bartel's whip had wrapped around her ankle. The thief crashed face first into the filthy floorboards as the gang leader yanked back on his weapon, blasting the wind from her lungs and knocking her senseless for the briefest instant. Although she recovered quickly, Bartel was already moving in on her, drawing his whip back for a second strike.

"Where do you think you're going?" the gang leader demanded. Annika tried to get to her feet, but Bartel's whip cracked again, tearing a bright line of blood through her thin pants across her left thigh. "I told you to stay hidden, so we could sort this out in the morning!"

"You're going to ransom me to the Urhalians!" Annika accused the gang leader, scrambling backwards. Bartel snapped his whip forward again, drawing a stinging line of pain across her cheek.

"You've become a liability," Bartel said, as if he had no other choice. "I mean, do you know how many constables will be swarming the docks come the dawn? I'm surprised they haven't shown up here yet!"

"Just… just let me go, and I'll leave!" Annika pleaded, trying to negotiate with the gang leader.

"Thirty gold, I bet I could get for you," Bartel reasoned, shrugging. Annika once again tried to stand, but Bartel caught her quickly by the ankle and yanked her foot out from under her. Once again gasping for breath, Annika yanked the rod free of her belt in desperation. "It's really a matter of money, Annika. Nothing personal, just business."

"I wonder what this does!" Annika screamed as she leapt to her knees. Bartel dodged back quickly, trying to stay clear of the rod's end, but the move proved unnecessary. Annika scrambled to her feet, but stopped in shock as she stared at the rod's newest effect.

Neither Annika nor Bartel had seen such a creature before, but its simple size took up more than a third of the Broken Harpoon's common room. Covered in leathery, grayish black skin and tipped with a single, curved horn on the tip of its nose, the creature stood at least five feet tall at the shoulder and was heavy enough to instantly crack the floorboards. As the two thieves gawked in stunned silence at the thing Annika had summoned, it turned on Bartel and uttered a low, intimidating grunt.

"Annika, what have you done?" Bartel asked in fright. Again the creature grunted, its beady black eyes locked onto Bartel. Then it lowered its horned head and stormed forward.

Annika did not even wait long enough to see if the beast had skewered Bartel on its horn. The thief was up and running even as the thing smashed through the wall of the Broken Harpoon, racing away from her summoning before it could possibly turn on her. Annika sprinted down one block and turned a quick right, running for all she was worth back into the heart of Tierwaal and away from the furious bellows of the monster ravaging Haven-straat. She stopped running only when she had crossed the entire city, finally stumbling to a halt only a few yards from the towering southern wall of Tierwaal on the cobblestone expanse of Muur-straat. During the day hundreds of stalls would line Muur-straat along the slate colored southern wall, but for the moment nothing stirred in the darkness and not a single light illuminated the shuttered windows of the homes and shops along the curbs of the street.

As Annika looked back up the wide thoroughfare of Oosten-straat that had led her so far away from the docks, the thief tried to think of any place she could go for help. She had no money, she was wanted by thirty Urhalian sailors, Bartel had turned on her, and she was now not only responsible for setting fire to a ship, but she had also summoned some sort of demon into existence at the Broken Harpoon. If she stayed in Tierwaal she would certainly be hunted down, but Annika had never even set foot outside the gates of the port city and had no idea what to expect on the open road. For a long moment the thief simply stood in the middle of street, wanting to scream, cry, run, and hide all at once, but with the last reserves of her will she brought herself back under control. Blind panic would do nothing for her.

Annika remained silent and still in the street for another moment, but finally set out for the western side of Tierwaal. She knew she was taking a huge gamble, but there was one person left in the city that might be able, and more importantly willing, to help her.

* * *

The night had started out well. That was about all he could say for it.

Dawn was still an hour or so away when Zarne van Erison unlocked the door to his room and slowly shuffled inside. The thing that had somehow gotten loose on Haven-straat had been, to the constable, the most terrifying demon he had ever faced. The three wizards that had helped to kill the thing had called it a rhinoceros and pronounced it a mundane beast rather than some hellspawned monstrosity, but Zarne chose to ignore their proclamation in light of the four buildings it had knocked down and the ribs it had broken in the constable. Fortunately for Zarne, Pelor's priests had also turned out to fight the rhinoceros, and what had been a life threatening injury had been reduced to a dull, constant ache up and down his left side.

"And now, I am going to sleep for three days," Zarne decided, speaking to the darkened room as he slowly walked to the bed set along the left wall.

"Um, Zarne?"

The constable spun toward the lone window of his cramped room quickly, his long sword skidding free of its sheath in a single, fluid motion. Peering into the darkness, Zarne could finally make out a diminutive, female figure hiding against the wall next to his window, even as the voice registered in his mind.

"Annika?" the constable asked in disbelief.

"Yes," Annika replied quietly. "I… please don't turn me in, Zarne. I need your help! I swear to Pelor it wasn't my fault!"

"Annika, what are you even doing here?" Zarne asked, sheathing his sword. "How did you even know where I lived?"

"Lucky guess?" Annika replied, her innocent shrug barely visible in the darkness.

"Never mind that," Zarne said, quickly remembering what had begun his disastrous night. "What in the Abyss is going on?"

"Zarne, please, it wasn't my fault!" Annika began quickly, seeing the constable's anger. "I mean, it wasn't really my fault! I didn't want to throw a fireball at the ship, honest!"

"Slow down, Annika!" Zarne ordered, trying to sort through the events of the night. Annika nodded, withdrawing slightly into the corner of the room.

"I… I really need your help, Zarne," the thief said quietly. Even in the darkness Zarne could make out the fear shining in her eyes. "I… there's no one else I can turn to."

Zarne hesitated for a long moment as he considered the thief's plea. Although Annika was about as trustworthy as any of the miscreants and criminals of Tierwaal's docks, this time her fright seemed genuine, and she certainly had no reason to torch an Urhalian ship in port. As the constable tried to decide whether he should bring the girl before the magistrate or help her out of her jam, he lit the candle on his night stand, wanting to at least see Annika's face well enough to read any deceit she might try. As he turned back to her, however, he stopped for a long moment. Annika's eyes certainly held a genuine fear, but the long streaks of blood across her cheek and leg immediately caught his attention.

"What happened to you?" Zarne asked as took a step toward the girl. The constable already had his suspicions as to the thief's wounds, but after everything else that had happened earlier he was not willing to make a final judgment until he heard it from his guest.

"Bartel," Annika answered quietly, looking down at the ground. The girl's voice broke as she continued. "He… he was going to sell me to the Urhalians… said he could probably get thirty gold…"

"It's all right, Annika," Zarne said, lifting the girl's chin and examining the cut across her cheek. The injury was long, stretching almost from her ear to the corner of her mouth, but it was not deep and hardly life threatening. Such an injury, however, would scar badly unless it was treated by a priest. The same could be said for the wound to her leg; while it was painful, she would easily survive. "I tell you what," Zarne said, leading Annika to his bed and sitting her down on the edge. "Let's start at the beginning, and I'll see if there's anything I can do for you."

"I… it was because of Bartel," Annika started. Zarne was used to the tactic by now; two thirds of the thieves on the harborfront began any defense by blaming someone else. "He… he said he would sell me to the Urhalians if I didn't come up with the money I owed him!" The thief hesitated for a moment before holding up the rod that she had discovered. "If it wasn't for him I never would have found this thing!"

"Don't point that at me!" Zarne snapped hastily, smacking the tip of the rod away from him. Annika cringed back in fear at the sudden burst of action. "Annika, you have to tell me more than that. Where did you find this thing?"

"The Magie Vierkant," Annika replied quietly.

"Did you steal it from someone?" Zarne inquired, already suspecting that she had lifted the item from a merchant's wagon or a wizard's belt.

"No!" Annika countered. "No, it just… it just… fell in front of me!"

"Fell in front of you?" Zarne repeated, his extreme skepticism coming through in his tone. "Look, Annika, if you stole it, I'm not going-"

"I swear I didn't steal it!" Annika interrupted. "It fell out of the sky! I was walking through Magie-Vierkant and suddenly it… it just fell in front of me!"

"Okay, you didn't steal it," Zarne conceded, humoring the girl for the moment. "What happened next?"

"I… well, I picked it up," Annika continued. "And then I said 'I wonder what-'"

Zarne tried to clamp a hand down over Annika's mouth, but it was too late. The thief managed to speak enough of the rod's command word or words to cause yet another bizarre reaction, but this time it seemed more harmless than anything else. Zarne's door, the first object in line with the tip of the rod, began to sprout leaves of nearly every shape, ranging from a deep, vibrant green to brilliant scarlet and golden yellow. Annika stared at the door in shock, stunned by the newest display of the rod's power.

"Whatever you said to activate that wand, don't say it again while you're holding it," Zarne instructed sternly. Annika nodded, her eyes still on the leaves sprouting from the sturdy oaken door. "Okay, so what happened when you said it the first time?"

"I… turned invisible," Annika recalled, forcing her attention back to the constable. "There was a flash of light, but I think I was the only one who saw it, and then someone walked into me because he couldn't see me."

"And then what?" Zarne asked.

"Well, I was only invisible for a little bit," Annika said. "And then… I tried to do that again later on the docks…"

"To rob the Urhalians?" Zarne concluded.

"Bartel was going to sell me to them!" Annika exclaimed. "I had to!"

"Okay, I believe you," Zarne said. "And instead of turning invisible, you threw a fireball at them?"

"I didn't mean it!" Annika countered anxiously. "After the grass, I tried to use it again, and-"

"What grass?" Zarne asked, cutting off her story.

"The grass that grew when I first tried to use it on the dock!" Annika explained. "I… the second time I tried it the only thing that happened was grass started to grow in front of me!"

"And then the fireball," Zarne said. Annika nodded. "And then you tried to run."

"And I ran into you," Annika continued, her gaze dropping to the ground.

"And you got away from me by conjuring up those butterflies," Zarne said. Annika nodded. "So why are you here now?"

"Bartel… when I told him about what happened, he acted like he was going to help me," Annika said, looking up again. "But he locked me in the storage cellar-"

"Of the Broken Harpoon?" Zarne guessed, recalling his earlier fight with the rhinoceros.

"How…" the thief began. She stopped, and dropped her head. "The demon."

"It wasn't a demon," Zarne said. Annika looked up. "At least, that's what one of the wizards said. It was a rhinoceros. Supposed to be a normal creature."

"Did… did it kill Bartel?" Annika asked cautiously.

"It didn't kill anyone that we knew of," Zarne answered. Annika nodded, a mixture of relief and fear on her face. "So that's everything."

"You were the only one I could think of that might help me," Annika said. "All I need is a couple of gold, and maybe I can book passage on a ship, and you'll never see me again!"

"Which ship would you like to book passage on?" Zarne asked. "The Urhalian one?"

"I… can go by land," Annika said, realizing the dangers of returning to the docks. "Maybe join a caravan to Zaandam, or catch a coach."

"Annika, even if I did have the money to give you, where would you go?" Zarne inquired. "No caravan will hire you, unless maybe you know how to cook, and both of us together don't have the money for a coach to Zaandam."

"But… what else can I do?" Annika asked, closed to tears. Zarne paused for a moment, trying to find an answer to the girl's question.

"First and foremost, we can get some sleep," the constable finally decided, hoping to sidestep a direct answer for the moment. "If you feel half as exhausted as you look, you're ready to collapse. In the morning, maybe we can find out where that rod came from and start to put things back in order. I'll even let you take the bed."

"Zarne?" Annika asked, her eyes on the constable as he tried to decide which floorboard would make the most appealing bed.

"What?" Zarne said, turning back to her.

"Are… are you sure everything will be all right?" the thief asked hesitantly.

"No one's going to hurt you while I'm around, Annika," Zarne promised. "Now get some sleep. No one even knows where you are."

Annika forced out a smile of relief, then carefully pulled herself up onto the bed and buried herself beneath Zarne's blankets. Within moments the thief was silent and still, apparently fast asleep as soon as her head touched the constable's worn pillow. Zarne watched the bed for a long moment before looking to the ground.

"At least, I hope no one knows you're here," the constable amended quietly.


	6. A Beautiful Morning

**V**

"We want blood!"

"I understand your desire for vengeance, Evgeny," Bartel said, looking up from the worn surface of his corner table at the Broken Harpoon. The gang leader's typical table was the only untouched piece of furniture in the entire common room of the tavern, now open to the beautiful spring weather on two sides where Annika's demon had knocked down the walls of the building. Instead of dingy lamp light, the common room was lit by the same gray dawn as the streets outside, allowing for even deeper shadows in the far corners of the common room where the walls still stood. While the rest of the Broken Harpoon would have to be demolished and rebuilt, a cost which Bartel would have much preferred to have avoided, the gang leader had decided to conduct one last piece of business in his now ruined establishment. "I mean, look around you! My favorite inn has been destroyed!"

"We not care about inn!" Evgeny snapped, leaning down on the table in a show of intimidation to the far smaller Bartel. Evgeny was large by almost any standard of the word, measuring a full six feet or more in height and seemingly almost as wide at the shoulders. With his wild black beard, barrel chest, and aggressive, dark eyes, the first mate of the Urhalian merchant vessel _Narval_ was certainly an imposing figure. But with two of his men hidden in the wreckage of the bar and the alcove to the storage cellar wielding poisoned daggers, even a giant such as Evgeny was not quite so fearsome. "We want girl! She burn our ship!"

"I told you I would find her," Bartel assured the Urhalian, trying not to smile at the sailor's horrendous accent. The gang leader was still not entirely certain if Annika had burned Evgeny's ship or overcooked a side of mutton. "I have people all through the city, and I have even stationed men at both of the gates to make certain she doesn't try to slip out on a caravan or disappear into the farmlands. But for now, the only thing we can do is wait until the little girl shows herself, Evgeny. In the meantime, yelling at me won't do anything for either of us."

Evgeny spent another moment leaning over the table, trying one last time to intimidate the gang leader, but Bartel refused to flinch. Finally, the Urhalian straightened, and took a step away from the table.

"We trust you now," the sailor said, anger still evident in his voice. "But if you lie to us, we kill you as well as girl."

"I'm certain you'll try," Bartel said in a dismissive tone. Evgeny hesitated a moment longer, but finally turned and stalked out through the remains of the tavern. Bartel watched the Urhalian disappear along Haven-straat before finally shaking his head and sighing in frustration. Evgeny was certainly not a major problem in the grand scheme of things, but the Urhalian sailors could make things far more bothersome if they began tearing up the docks and Haven-straat in a brutal search for one reckless, irritating thief. With trade season only beginning, the last thing Bartel needed was such an interruption. Even as Bartel dropped his face into one hand in a gesture of fatigue and frustration, however, a quiet knock sounded at what remained of the front wall.

"I hope this isn't a bad time," a deep, quiet voice queried from the front of the common room. Bartel looked up with another sigh as he recognized the speaker's voice. "Is the bar still open?"

"What can I do for you today, Espen?" Bartel inquired as Espen gingerly made his way through the Broken Harpoon's wreckage. The tall, lanky leader of the Wharf Rats, arguably the most powerful thief and assassin in Tierwaal, allowed a smile to play along his thin lips as he ran a hand along his bald, shiny scalp. As always, the assassin was dressed in plain, though finely tailored black clothes, broken only by a royal violet sash around his waist. Although Espen, as always, appeared unarmed, Bartel was certain the rival gang leader had a number of hidden daggers on his person. "I don't mean to be rude, but we'll be closing soon for some… repairs."

"Ah, yes," Espen said, his smile broadening slightly as he looked across the ruined common room. "Having a bit of trouble with the locals?"

"You might say that," Bartel replied, rolling his eyes. Espen took another few seconds to appraise the damage, but finally turned back to Bartel.

"Some of my people said a thief of yours is responsible for this," the assassin informed Bartel. "And that she tried to burn an Urhalian merchant vessel to its waterline?"

"Annika," Bartel said. "We're having a little bit of trouble finding and… disciplining her at the moment."

"Annika," Espen repeated, lost in thought for a moment. Then he nodded. "Yes, I think I remember her. A pretty girl, dark eyes, a brunette if I recall."

"Yes, that would be her," Bartel confirmed, eager to move the conversation forward. "Is there something you want from me, Espen? Because I'm really kind of busy right now."

"Bartel, I almost detect a hint of ill will in your voice," Espen said, applying a hint of melodramatics to his demeanor.

"The question stands," Bartel stated flatly. Espen took a moment, idly examining his well manicured fingers before he spoke again.

"The girl has come into possession of a magical rod," the assassin said.

"The source of all our problems," Bartel explained with a gesture to his ruined bar.

"I would very much appreciate it if you would give me that rod, once you find and deal with the girl," Espen said. "I think I may have uses for such an item."

"You want that thing?" Bartel asked, uncertain what Espen would want with what, to him at least, seemed to be a cursed item. The gang leader paused for a moment, then folded his hands in front of him and leaned forward slightly. "Understand that I cannot… guarantee that she hasn't already discarded the rod."

"Ah, and so we come to the part where you seek some… incentive," Espen concluded, smiling as he shook his head slightly. Bartel nodded simply. "And what exactly was your idea of incentive?"

"Every year we pay you for our space on the docks," Bartel said. "This year, I don't want to pay that fee."

"Bartel, you are lucky that we have not put you and the girl down already for what she has done," Espen said, a sinister undertone beginning to creep into his voice.

"Put the girl down, for all I care," Bartel said. Though he still wanted to get some kind of profit out of her after all the damage she had done, the gang leader was willing to cut his losses with her mere demise. "She's cost me enough already. I just lost the Broken Harpoon before the bulk of the trade season!"

"My heart bleeds for you," Espen said. "But I will still drive you out of the city if you don't pay the proper fees."

"The rod covers the fees," Bartel stated, putting a definite note of finality into his voice.

"Don't play with me," Espen growled, growing openly threatening.

"If we fight, you'll win," Bartel said evenly. "I know that. But I'll make sure to hurt you bad enough that the others will finish you off. A hundred pieces of gold is really not all that much in the grand scheme of things, is it? Or are you willing to destroy yourself for it?"

Espen's cold blue eyes locked onto Bartel for a long moment, but the gang leader somehow managed to keep his cool in the face of the assassin's wrath. Finally, however, Espen smiled, and his sinister demeanor disappeared entirely.

"Fifty gold this year, instead of a hundred," the assassin offered. "Turn over the rod to me, and that's all you need to pay."

"Twenty-five," Bartel tried. Espen shook his head.

"Don't play with me," the assassin repeated. "Fifty gold, or your thieves may begin to have serious problems."

"Okay," Bartel said, deciding not to push his luck any farther. "Fifty gold and the rod. As long as we find it."

"I think I might be able to help you with that," Espen said with a smile.

* * *

It felt like he had only just fallen asleep when the early morning sun woke him.

Zarne rubbed his eyes and slowly rolled out of the shaft of sunlight leaking in through his partially opened shutters, debating for a long moment if he should try to get some more sleep or wake up and face the day. As his mind cleared, however, he remembered exactly why he was sleeping on the floor instead of in his bed, and the constable quickly lifted himself into a sitting position. With a final yawn, Zarne looked to the bed and his overnight guest.

Annika was still sound asleep, hidden beneath the blankets except for her head. The long gash that Bartel's whip had dug into her cheek was even more glaring in the daytime, marring the otherwise angelic innocence she seemed to possess while asleep. For a long moment, the constable could not help but feel sorry for the girl; she was only one of dozens of dockside orphans in Tierwaal, abandoned by the prostitutes that had given birth to them in back alleys or seedy taverns. The Church of Pelor and Tierwaal's Council of Mages did try to help the unfortunate children, but the church could only take in a handful each year and the Council seemed to always have more pressing matters to attend to when it came time to build orphanages or round up the children. As a result, most thieves ended up calling thugs like Bartel or Espen father, and such fathers demanded that their new families become accomplished thieves. During his first two years as a constable Zarne had nearly gone broke trying to help the conscripted thieves and orphans, swearing that he would never become like the jaded, cynical watchmen who had taught him the basics of keeping order on the docks. But now, nine years after his first patrol and approaching his twenty-eighth spring, he found himself acting just like his one time mentors. He helped when he could, but there was only so much that one constable could do, and there were several thieves who were more than willing to take advantage Zarne's occasional kindness. Over the year and a half that Zarne had known her, Annika seemed to be a fairly genuine girl and unhappy as a thief, and those factors had played heavily on his decision to help the poor girl out of her current predicament.

One look at the bronze rod lying on the floor next to his bed, however, banished any feelings of pity for the moment. Annika had successfully burned the rigging out of a merchant ship, summoned a creature that had demolished four buildings, conjured a swarm of butterflies, and even made his door sprout a lush assortment of leaves with the bizarre magical device. The Urhalians and Bartel were all after her, and the last thing the constable wanted was for his small boarding room to be the next battleground for vengeance or money. Zarne quickly took care of morning business, then turned back to Annika to wake the young thief. After another appraisal of the gash to her check, however, Zarne opened the tiny closet in the corner of his room and pulled out a little jar set back on the top shelf. With the jar in hand, he walked back to the bed, and gently shook Annika's shoulder.

"It wasn't my fault!" Annika exclaimed, scrambling away from the constable. The thief backed up against the wall with an audible thump, but the impact seemed to knock the grogginess from her mind. Quickly Annika composed herself, remaining against the wall but relaxing visibly.

"So you keep saying," Zarne said, smiling slightly in an effort to calm the girl. Annika returned the gesture with a faintly embarrassed smile of her own as she slowly slid back to the center of the bed. "Let's have a look at that cut on your cheek," the constable suggested.

"It just aches a little," Annika said, hesitantly leaning forward slightly. Zarne examined the wound for a moment, then placed the jar on the edge of the bed and removed the cap. "What is that?" Annika inquired, her eyes dropping to the paste inside the jar.

"Something I got from the church," Zarne replied, scooping a little bit of the ointment out with his fingertips. "It's not the most potent healing salve in the world, but with any luck, your cut won't scar so badly."

"I… thank you," Annika said, her eyes on the constable's face as Zarne carefully applied the salve. A hint of suspicion lingered in the thief's eyes as he took care of her injury, almost as if she expected to have to repay the kindness somehow in the future. Zarne could not blame her for her suspicions; after all, Bartel or Espen would demand something in return for such meager assistance, if they even offered the help at all. "It kind of tingles," the thief said as Zarne finished.

"That means it's working, I think," the constable said. He handed her the jar. "You can take care of your leg, and get cleaned up a little," Zarne instructed. "We have a lot to do today if we want to find out where that rod came from."

"But… how are we going to find the owner?" Annika asked. "How do we even know if there is an owner? I told you, it fell out of the sky."

"We'll start where you found it," Zarne explained. The constable paused for a moment, then turned back to Annika with a bit of a smile. "Of course, with everything you managed to destroy last night, it's possible the owner will find us."

* * *

"So how do you think Espen knew she was here?"

"He's got thirty-four thieves working for him," Tiede pointed out as he leaned back against the corner of a building opposite Zarne van Erison's boarding house. "I would think one of them saw her leaving the Broken Harpoon after that… thing destroyed it."

"The rhinoceros?" Niels inquired, juggling a trio of muffins as he sat crosslegged in the alley. Tiede turned back to his companion.

"I can't believe you actually remembered the name of that thing," the older of the two thieves said, shaking his head at his redheaded cohort. Probably somewhere around fifteen or sixteen, Niels was tall and almost rail thin, but despite his gangly appearance was lightning quick with the daggers he hid in the sleeves of his ragged clothing. Tiede was a good two or three inches shorter than his ally at somewhere around five and a half feet tall, he was possessed of a more burly frame than his companion, and was almost nineteen, marking him as one of the senior thieves in Bartel's coterie. While Niels was certainly more agile and deft than his friend, Tiede more than compensated for the lack of dexterity with experience, strength, and a mean streak that made him the premier mugger on Haven-straat. Niels smiled up at his sandy haired companion, his blue eyes sparkling with good humor.

"How could you not remember a name like that?" Niels inquired with a broad grin that displayed a wide gap where his front teeth had once been.

"Are you gonna eat those muffins, or juggle them all day?" Tiede asked, ignoring the younger thief's query.

"Why, you hungry?" Niels asked in reply. The redhead tossed one of the muffins to his partner before Tiede could answer, barely breaking his steady juggling. Tiede caught the food easily and nodded his thanks, returning his attention to the bare, whitewashed door to van Erison's three story boarding house. "Remind me again why we don't just go up there, bop them on the head, and drag Annika off with us," Niels said, finally ending his juggling act and eating one of the muffins himself.

"Because, you idiot, she's with van Erison," Tiede answered, barely sparing a glance over his shoulder. "We want to separate the two of them and then get her back to Bartel. It's easier that way."

"Oh," Niels said, shrugging. The younger mugger stood up and dusted his pants off as he joined his partner. "You think he's taking advantage of her up there?"

"Doubt it," Tiede said, dismissing the idea of van Erison having his way with the embattled thief. "He seems to like the girl too much to force himself on her. Besides, I heard he got his heart broken by a bard or something like that. He hasn't gone after another girl since."

"Maybe he decided it's time to move on," Niels said with a bit of a leer. "I mean, I wouldn't mind laying with her for a while."

"I'll let Bartel know you'd like first dibs on her," Tiede said. "Assuming you have the money to pay him for her."

"We'll borrow it from van Erison," Niels suggested, his grin broadening.

"Great idea," Tiede said, though he could not completely suppress his own smirk. His mirth quickly disappeared, however, as his mark and her new guardian stepped out of the door to van Erison's boarding house. "Quiet down," Tiede instructed. "There they are."

"She's still got the rod," Niels observed, seeing the bronze bar that Annika had poorly concealed under her ragged cloak.

"Yeah, we need that," Tiede said. Niels grabbed him by the arm as he was about to start after the pair.

"What if she throws another fireball at us?" the younger mugger asked nervously. Tiede stared at his companion for a moment with a disbelieving look on his face.

"Then duck," he finally said, as if the answer was completely obvious.

* * *

"Just think about where you found it."

"In the Magie Vierkant," Annika replied, keeping alongside Zarne as the constable made his way through the first merchants and shoppers along Muur-straat. While the street was currently occupied by a few well placed stalls and a handful of early risers, during the height of the day farmers and craftsmen from the fields and villages surrounding Tierwaal would turn the thoroughfare into a crowded shopping district.

"Yeah, but where in the Magie Vierkant?" Zarne pressed, trying to get some kind of useful information out of his new companion. "Did you get it off of a stall, or out of a shop, or-"

"I told you, it fell out of the sky," Annika interrupted. The thief wandered slightly to one side as she spoke, closing in on a diminutive cart full of apples and pears. "I was in the middle of the square, and it just fell in front of me."

"It was right in the middle of the square?" Zarne asked, grabbing the thief's wrist as she tried to take an apple off of the corner of the cart. Annika turned a furious scowl on the constable as he caught her in the act. "Think. What buildings were right next to you? Who was standing right next to you? Magic rods don't just fall out of the sky."

"There was no one next to me," Annika repeated, trying for a different apple. Again Zarne stopped her, giving her a stern glare as he took the fruit out of her hand and replaced it on the cart. "I mean, I as between that weird looking tower and the Boekerij-Tovenaar, but-"

"The tower," Zarne repeated, nodding. It's at least thirty feet tall. Maybe the rod could have fallen from there?"

"Maybe," Annika said sullenly, shrugging as she tried to edge her way to a different part of the cart. Zarne rolled his eyes.

"Are you hungry?" the constable inquired irritably, growing rapidly tired of the girl's constant attempts at the fruit on the cart.

"Starving!" Annika exclaimed, her mood lightening instantly as she expected the constable to buy some food for her. Zarne let out a sigh of frustration, but reluctantly dug into his purse and withdrew a handful of copper pieces. The cart's owner instantly appeared at the constable's side as soon as he touched his belt, smiling amiably

"How much?" the constable inquired, turning to the man.

"Four copper," the merchant replied with almost sickening good humor. Zarne's jaw dropped open.

"Four copper?" the constable repeated, incredulous. He pointed to Annika. "I thought she was the thief!"

"Thanks," Annika grumbled.

"Look at them! Almost fresh from the tree, and this so far from the apple harvest!" the merchant explained, his bright smile still in place. "Where else, dear friend, could you find such fresh apples in spring?"

"All right, all right," Zarne grumbled, handing the money over to the merchant and taking his food. Annika devoured her apple as the pair walked in silence the rest of the way to Oosten-straat and turned north, then turned a sad, longing look on the constable as he slowly bit into his breakfast. For a moment the constable tried to ignore the girl, but then turned to her. "This one is mine," he stated simply. "You're lucky you got one in the first place."

"But… I haven't eaten in three days," Annika said, giving the constable her most pathetic, innocent act as she stared at the half eaten apple.

"I'm sure you haven't," Zarne said sardonically as he entered the north end of the Magie Vierkant. Annika rolled her eyes and looked away. "Now, if we could get back to the business of getting rid of this rod, where did you find it?"

Annika turned a sullen, disappointed look to Zarne as she began to answer his question, but before she could speak her eyes went wide in terror. Even as Zarne turned to face whatever had caught her attention, something slammed into the side of his head, knocking him senseless and throwing him to the ground.

* * *

"She turned you blue?"

"Yes, she turned me blue," Gerrit muttered, wishing he had never mentioned the previous day's inconvenience to Willem. The older mage was standing just outside the door to his tower as Gerrit made certain his papers were with him, ready to continue the debate over the extension of the Tierwaal docks past the western wall of the city. "It really was not as funny as you seem to think it was."

"I wish I had been here to see that," Willem said, his full gray beard only partially obscuring the broad grin on the wizard's face. "That Sanna really does amuse me sometimes. A rod of wonder, with a command word of wonder! She's priceless!"

"Yes, well, maybe you would like to rein in your mirth a little and concentrate on the task at hand," Gerrit said, his words coming out a bit more harshly than even he had intended. Sanna's actions had been nothing short of stupid, that was true, but it still did not sit well with the wizard to have his companions laugh at the sorceress in front of him.

"Oh, come now, Gerrit, you know I mean nothing by it," Willem said, apparently realizing the reason for Gerrit's irritable answer. "She is a lovely woman with a heart of pure gold, but even you cannot deny her scatterbrained antics."

"Of course not," Gerrit mumbled as the two men turned north to start up to the municipal buildings set in the heart of Tierwaal. Willem slapped the younger mage on the back heartily as he took his place next to Gerrit.

"You're going to have to learn to laugh over her absentminded nature sooner or later," Willem said. Gerrit shrugged. "Still in love with the woman, I see," Willem concluded.

"No, it's not that, it's just…" Gerrit started. The wizard's statement trailed off, however, as the two men cleared Gerrit's tower and found themselves walking into an apparent brawl. One man was already on the ground, a large bruise already spreading across his right temple, while two younger men turned on a girl that had already been backed into a corner.

"Another lovely morning in Tierwaal," Willem said, pushing his sleeves back slightly in preparation for a spell. The older wizard hesitated for a moment, staring at the man on the ground. "Isn't that one a constable?" Willem inquired nonchalantly.

"We can find out after the web spells take hold," Gerrit decided, calling to mind the perfect spell for detaining the local miscreants. While brawls were almost commonplace on the waterfront, the Magie Vierkant was rarely troubled by fights, and the wizard took the intrusion upon his neighborhood personally.

Just as Gerrit was about to cast his web spell, however, the girl reached under her cloak and drew out a magnificent bronze rod, its beautiful engravings easily noticeable even across the thirty or forty feet that separated them. The girl used the rod to knock away one of her attackers' clubs, then quickly turned the staff on the two young men.

"I wonder what this does!" the girl screamed at the top of her lungs. Gerrit's shock at hearing the girl's shout lasted only a heartbeat before he was blinded by a sudden barrage of flashing lights. Willem shouted in pain and confusion as the rod of wonder also stole his sight.

"Annika, you little bitch!" someone shouted from the general direction of the brawl. Gerrit's sight was already beginning to return, but the fading swirls of light in front of his eyes kept him from seeing anything more of the girl or her attackers.

"Zarne! Zarne, come on, wake up!" the girl that had activated the rod exclaimed frantically.

"Tiede, I can't see!" someone else shouted. "Where is she?"

"I got her!" the first young man exclaimed. Gerrit's vision finally cleared enough to see one of the young men stumbling about, one hand on the girl's cloak as he tried to feel his way towards her. The girl, already on her knees next to the man that had originally been downed, turned and used the rod as a club, knocking her blind attacker away from her. "I'm gonna kill you, Annika!" the man shouted, drawing a pair of daggers from his sleeves. Once again Annika brought the rod to bear.

"I wonder what this does!" she screamed again, still trying to shake her companion awake. The young man lunged for her even as she spoke, but by the time she had finished her statement, both Annika and her semiconscious companion had vanished into thin air.

"Blasted stupid lights!" Willem shouted, still rubbing at his eyes to return his sight. With their targets gone, the two young muggers were already disappearing into the alleys on the northern end of the Magie Vierkant, but the boys were of no concern to Gerrit as he tried to force himself to believe what he had just seen. Without another word the mage turned and raced back to his tower, all thoughts of the Council of Mages gone from his mind.


	7. A String of Misfortunes

VI

He had just recovered from the initial impact of Tiede's sap against his head when a second wave of vertigo and a stunning flash of light stole his senses a second time.

Zarne flailed about for a moment, trying to locate anything in the flashes of light and darkness playing across his vision, but within a heartbeat the vertigo gave way to a sudden impact into a shallow body of sludgy, foul smelling water. The constable launched himself out of the fetid water almost as quickly as he had fallen into it, slamming his head into a stone ceiling and stumbling back into a wall directly behind him. Zarne shouted in pain as he instinctively grabbed the top of his head, taking a moment to try to regain his bearings before he moved again.

Annika shrieked in terror suddenly, her voice only a few feet in front of him. Zarne drew his sword and quickly tried to turn to her, but the slippery, curving floor stole his footing and the constable dropped back to his knees even as his blade cracked into the ceiling. He had only barely managed to gain his balance when Annika tumbled into him, still screaming in fright. Zarne and Annika both crashed backward into the disgusting water a second time, tangled up with each other as the constable's blade flew free of his hand and splashed into the water.

"What in the Abyss?" Zarne demanded, finally managing to toss Annika to one side as he tried to get out of the water again.

"Rats!" Annika exclaimed in horror, almost climbing onto Zarne's shoulders. The place where he had landed held only a faint hint of illumination, but as he managed to regain his bearings the constable could hear a number of the rodents squeaking in the darkness. "I hate rats!" Annika continued frantically, trying to use him as a shield.

"Annika, calm down!" Zarne said, pushing the thief back into the wall of the dank passage. One of the rats was swimming fairly close to the pair in the sludge, but the constable kicked the rodent out of sight before Annika could throw herself into a new fit of panic. With the constable close to her, Annika finally calmed down a bit, but her eyes continued to art around the dark passage as the rats squeaked in the darkness. "What happened?"

"Niels and Tiede tried to kidnap me, but I used the rod and…" Annika trailed off as she looked around her. "I hope we aren't in the Abyss," the thief said quietly, taking stock of their disgusting surroundings.

"We're not in the Abyss," Zarne said, finally recognizing the circular passage and the horrible stench for what it was. "We're in the sewer."

"Oh," Annika said, sounding almost relieved. While Zarne could not quite stand up in the small passage, the shorter thief had no trouble with the corridor's height. "Well, I… I guess that's better than in Bartel's hands," Annika said, trying to put a positive light on their situation.

"Yeah, fantastic," Zarne grumbled, trying to wipe the grime from his tunic and chain shirt. After only a few seconds, however, the constable gave up his futile attempts to clean himself and turned his attention to the water where his sword had most likely fallen. Slowly, and wrinkling his nose in disgust, the constable slowly lowered himself to his knees and began to feel around the bottom of the passage for his missing blade.

"What's wrong?" Annika asked, watching her companion for a moment.

"When you ran into me I lost my sword," Zarne explained. "Either find a light or find my sword."

"Sorry," Annika said, cautiously edging her way past the constable to search ahead of him. Zarne came up with his weapon a second later, sparing the thief from having to feel around the rat infested sewers herself.

"Now all we have to do is find a way out," Zarne said, sheathing his sword as he tried to gain some sense of direction. With almost no light and no way of knowing which way he had been facing even before he was spun around, however, the constable had no way of knowing which direction to take.

"Should I try the rod again?" Annika asked, holding the magical rod out in front of her.

"No!" Zarne exclaimed, almost ducking in case the rod was pointed at him. "No, no, we'll find a way out of here," the constable continued in a calmer tone. "Annika, whatever you do, _don't_ use that thing again."

* * *

"Sanna!"

Sanna spun quickly, throwing her hands behind her back like a child caught trying to sneak a sweet from the kitchen as Gerrit rushed into her workshop.

"Yes, Gerrit?" the sorceress inquired, a cautious smile on her face as she saw the wizard at the top of the steps.

"Sanna," Gerrit repeated, taking a moment to calm himself. "Did you happen to put that rod of wonder you created yesterday someplace safe?"

"Why… of course," Sanna said, although the look that flashed across her eyes told Gerrit otherwise. From her suddenly stunned reaction, the wizard figured that Sanna had not even remembered she created the rod until he mentioned it, much less put it anyplace safe. The sorceress gestured to her cluttered benches and tables as she continued. "I… it's in my workshop."

"Well, that's good," Gerrit said, playing along for the moment. Sanna was a horrendous liar; even if he had not seen the girl in the square outside using the rod, he would have known that she had no idea of the rod's location. "That's very good. Safely locked up in a cupboard, I suppose?"

"Yes! Yes, of course!" Sanna exclaimed with a nervous laugh and an anxious smile. "Safely locked up in a cupboard, that's right!"

"May I see it?" Gerrit inquired simply.

"I beg your pardon?" Sanna asked, her smile still in place despite a new wave of fear.

"I thought I would take another look at it," Gerrit said, clasping his hands behind his back and walking towards the sorceress. "You know, it is a fine work of art, if nothing else. Your best work yet."

"Yes, yes it was," Sanna agreed hastily, laughing again. The sorceress spun around quickly in a desperate search for the rod before she turned back to Gerrit.

"I'm waiting," Gerrit prompted, a cool smile on his face as he stopped only a few inches from the sorceress.

"Yes, of course," Sanna said with a nod. Again she looked around the workshop. "Um, now where did I put it?"

"Well, you must have locked it up somewhere, just like I asked of you," Gerrit said, trying to keep all of the sarcasm out of his voice. Sanna turned back to Gerrit, coming to the realization that he knew that she had not done as he had asked.

"Um, I… forgot where it is," Sanna finally admitted.

"Would you like me to tell you where it is?" Gerrit asked evenly.

"Um, I'm not sure," Sanna answered. Gerrit smirked at the reply.

"It's in the hands of a young girl," the wizard replied. "Last I saw her, she was in the square below blinding half of the Magie Vierkant with it."

"How… how did she get it?" Sanna asked.

"I was hoping you'd tell me," Gerrit said. "Because I told you to lock it away somewhere, and now it's out in the city causing all sorts of problems!"

"But… it's not my fault!" Sanna said. "I never gave it to anyone! I never even took it out of the workshop!"

"Then how did it get outside? Gerrit demanded. "Did it grow wings and fly out?"

"I never thought of that," Sanna said, taking the wizard's sarcastic question seriously. "Can a rod of wonder do that?"

"No, it can't!" Gerrit exclaimed. "I was being facetious! How did it get into that girl's hands?"

"Maybe she stole it!" Sanna replied quickly. "Maybe she crept in last night and stole the rod!"

Gerrit shook his head in frustration, realizing that Sanna was not going to be much help in figuring out how the rod got out of the tower. While he was certain that she had left it in her workshop while she attempted to help him reverse the curse she had placed on him, it had to have gotten out somehow. The girl was more than likely a thief, but she never could have gotten past the magical and mundane deterrents he had installed in the tower. Only an accomplished thief with access to mystical countermeasures could have gotten through his wards and locks, and the girl, Annika if he had heard her name correctly, did not have the look of an accomplished thief.

Sanna continued with her theory of a thief breaking into the tower, but Gerrit barely heard her as he tried to retrace the previous day's steps. Sanna had been working at the table where she now stood when he had arrived yesterday, then gone to a table just to the left to retrieve the rod. She had held the rod in her hand for the next few minutes, turned him blue, and then, whe3n he had gotten angry, she had backed up to the window…

"That's how it got out," Gerrit suddenly said. Sanna stopped speaking and turned to the wizard.

"What?" Sanna asked. "How?"

"The window," Gerrit said, pointing to the east facing windows.

"The thief came in that way?" Sanna concluded. Gerrit closed his eyes for a moment, controlling his anger.

"Not quite," the wizard finally said.

* * *

"Then she just disappeared!"

"She just… disappeared," Bartel repeated, too frustrated to even be angry with Tiede for the moment. Tiede nodded quickly in agreement, and Bartel dropped his head to the bare, rickety table he now occupied in the corner of a dingy waterfront warehouse. "How, pray tell, did Annika just… disappear?"

"She used the rod!" Niels put in quickly. "I mean, first the thing blinded us, and then… I don't know. She went invisible, or something!"

"She used the rod," Bartel echoed, his mind only partially on the conversation as he lifted his head from the table. Tiede and Niels were directly in front of him, but the gang leader could easily see past them to the vast expanse of boxes and crates inside the warehouse that Bartel was now forced to use as a base of operations. Losing the Broken Harpoon to the monster that Annika had summoned was bad enough without half the constables in ht city now trying to locate him. The Urhalians were also becoming a nuisance; at least one of them seemed to show up every hour demanding to know if the gang leader had found his rogue conscript, and then to hurl threats and insults in a mix of the Utrecht and Urhalian languages before stalking back to the _Narval_. "One girl. One stupid, clumsy, luckless girl, and the two of you, who are supposed to be the best muggers in Tierwaal, can't come up with her."

"It was just a bit of bad luck," Tiede explained hastily. "Next time I bet the rod won't teleport her, and then we'll definitely be able to get her! I mean, we had van Erison out of the fight before he even knew what hit him! It was just a bit of bad luck!"

"Bad luck," Bartel repeated. Annika was supposed to be the one with bad luck, not him. But now, it seemed as though the girl's horrid luck was becoming contagious, and Bartel had seemed to take the brunt of the contagion. If things kept going this way, Bartel would soon find himself back at the bottom of the pecking order in Tierwaal, and all because Tiede and Niels were incapable of catching one girl.

"Just give us a little more time, and we'll find her," Tiede said, regaining the gang leader's full attention. Bartel's despondent expression changed quickly to a look of rage as he focused the blame directly on his two muggers.

"Damn right you will, or I'll have you both sunk in the harbor!" the gang leader shouted, jumping out of his chair and practically throwing the table at his two subordinates. Although the last thing Bartel wanted was to lose his two best thieves thrown into the bay with heavy stones tied to them, he was prepared to do anything to get his hands on Annika and her rod before the rest of the city tore him apart. "Get out there and find her!"

"Right away!" Niels and Tiede both said quickly. The two thieves practically ran into each other in their frantic dash for the door, slowing them for only a moment.

"Why are you two still here?" Bartel bellowed, finding an inkpot on the table and hurling it at the two muggers. While the inkpot sailed harmlessly between them, both Tiede and Niels redoubled their efforts and scrambled out of the warehouse. Bartel remained standing for a moment, fuming over his sudden curse of misfortune, but finally the gang leader sank back into his chair and turned his eyes skyward.

"What did I do to deserve this?"

* * *

"Are we lost?"

"No, I know right where we are," Zarne replied, his words dripping with sarcasm. The constable's head still ached from Tiede's earlier attack, he was tired, and he was thoroughly frustrated so far with his attempts to find his way out of the dank sewer system beneath Tierwaal. The nearly overpowering stench of the sewers only added to his discomfort and irritation. Annika's question, the first words she had spoken in what seemed like more than an hour, triggered a much needed release of anger and aggravation. "Fortunately, I always carry a detailed map of the sewers with me."

"Sorry I asked," Annika said quietly, sounding both hurt and annoyed by the constable's remark. Zarne stopped in a tiny pool of half light cast by a grating to the streets above.

"Look, sorry I snapped at you," Zarne said after a moment's hesitation. "I'm just… well, this is getting really frustrating. I have no idea where we are or which way to go."

"I know," Annika said, looking down at the filthy water swirling around their ankles. The thief paused before looking up again. "I'm sorry I dragged you into this, Zarne. Thank you so much for helping me like this. You don't know how much it means to me."

"Yeah, well, all in a day's work," Zarne muttered, looking up at the tiny grate again. While the sewage passages were barely tall enough for the constable to stand straight, the grates had been set into recesses that shot another ten or fifteen feet above the sewers. Even if the constable had some means of climbing the slippery walls up into the tiny shaft, there was no way he, or even Annika, could fit through the opening even if the bars could somehow be removed.

"Zarne?" Annika said. The constable turned back to her. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Yeah," Zarne replied, turning back to the sewer passages in front of him.

"Where is Erison?" Annika asked.

"Where is Erison?" Zarne repeated, not quite understanding the question.

"Your name," Annika said "Van Erison. You're from Erison. I was wondering where it is."

"If you were to take the road to Apelwaal, Erison is about ten miles east of here," Zarne said. Oddly enough, the mention of his home helped to lift his sour mood slightly, and he found himself freely talking as he continued down the dank passage. "It's not much of a place, really. Four farms border each other there on either side of the road, and a man named Erison built a small tavern to accommodate the farmhands when they had a little extra money to spend or travelers on their way between Tierwaal and Apelwaal. Before long, there was a wheelwright there, and a blacksmith, and a couple of other people trying to squeeze a little extra silver out of the coaches and farmhands."

"Was your father the mayor or something?" Annika asked. Zarne laughed.

"My father was the wheelwright," the constable replied with a smile.

"Then why the name?" Annika asked. Zarne laughed a little bit at the question.

"When I first got here, I thought I was a pretty good hand with a sword," Zarne said. "I thought I was going to be really important. And as we all know, important people have two names. It certainly wasn't because Zarne is a common name."

"What is it like, outside the city?" Annika asked. Zarne stopped for a moment, looking back to the thief.

"You've never been outside the walls?" the constable inquired. Annika shook her head.

"Not once," she confirmed.

"It's wide open," Zarne said, facing front and resuming his journey. "It doesn't smell at all like the city. The air is always fresh, except maybe if you're standing downwind of the stable, and the trees are tall and grow in rows between the fields. Now that I think about it, it wasn't that bad a place. Maybe if I wasn't the fourth son, I would have stayed there."

"Do you think you could take me there, some day?" Annika asked. Zarne nodded, even though she could not see it as he hunched over and continued through the passage.

"I think that can be arranged," the constable said. "Once we get out of here, that is."

"Too bad they put the sewer passages so far down from the street," Annika said, looking up at another tiny grate recessed high into the ceiling. Zarne nodded again, but then stopped and drew his sword as he found himself looking down at a pair of rather large rats. "Why are we stopping?" Annika asked. She gasped in fear and revulsion a second later as she saw the rodents in their way. Zarne drew his long sword and stabbed first one rat, then the other. "Thank you," Annika said.

"You really don't like rats," Zarne observed, watching as the thief took a wide berth even around the dead rats.

"No, I don't," Annika confirmed.

"Well, you don't see many rats in Erison," Zarne said. Annika laughed.

"Maybe I should move there," the thief said. "But I'd need a husband to take care of me."

"You'd be the darling of the town," Zarne said. "You'd have your pick of the men there."

"Well, are any of the wheelwright's sons available?" Annika inquired coyly. Zarne stopped for a moment, uncertain if the question was meant as a joke.

"I think most of them left Erison," the constable said, keeping his tone light and friendly. "Two to Apelwaal, me to Tierwaal, one to Eiden, and one stayed to keep the business open."

Annika giggled at that statement, perhaps noting Zarne's slight discomfort at the situation, but her mirth faded as rapidly as it had come as she pointed to the passage ahead.

"Is that torchlight?" the thief asked eagerly. Zarne strained his eyes to see into the darkness, and saw the same yellow glow that Annika had spotted.

"It looks that way," the constable said, "but who in the Abyss would be down here?"

"Who cares," Annika countered. "They have to know the way out! We can finally get out of here!"

"Something's not right about this whole thing," Zarne said, watching as a second momentary glow appeared in the distance. While Tierwaal did occasionally send men into the sewers to clear blockages or chase down desperate criminals, such occurrences were rare at best.

"If it makes you feel any better, we can sneak up there and see who it is," Annika said impatiently. "I mean, we have to go that way as it is."

"Okay, we sneak up," Zarne said, still concerned about the torchlight ahead. Annika took the lead as they started ahead again, stealthily creeping through the darkness, while Zarne held back a few feet with his hand on the hilt of his sword. They had gone perhaps sixty feet when Annika reached the apparent intersection where the torchlight had disappeared. Zarne stayed close to the wall as he moved up to Annika, now hearing a strange murmur, almost a chant, emanating from the passage on the other side of the intersection. As he reached her, Annika turned back to the constable.

"I think maybe we should go back," the thief whispered, her face ashen. "This… this isn't a good way to go."

"What is it?" Zarne asked, keeping his voice as low as possible.

"A… Cult of Nerull," Annika replied. Zarne's eyes went wide as she spoke the words. Banned from organized practice in Tierwaal and all of Utrecht for their profane practices and fascination with plague, the followers of the God of Death and Disease were still rumored to exist in secret, meeting in abandoned cemeteries or the sewers beneath cities where they worked their death magic and worship their fell god. For a moment Zarne hesitated in the passage, torn between finding his way out of the sewers and his desire to bring down an entire cell of Nerull cultists before they could spread any sort of disease through Tierwaal. A sudden gasp of fright from Annika, however, brought the constable's attention immediately back to the thief.

"What's wrong?" Zarne whispered.

"I… I think something just grabbed my ankle," Annika said, her voice rising slightly with her fear. Zarne glanced down to the water, but could see nothing through the film on the water's surface. Slowly the constable drew his sword, preparing for the worst, but before his blade had even cleared its scabbard Annika was yanked off of her feet and dragged into the filthy water. Zarne caught the girl by the wrist before she could be dragged under the shallow water, but even as he did so something caught him at the knee and ripped him off of his feet. The constable lost Annika as he too fell into the water, but the thief would have to fend for herself for the moment as Zarne hacked away at whatever had caught him. The constable's sword connected squarely with something in the water just as his head submerged, and instantly the pressure on his leg disappeared.

"Zarne, help m-" Annika screamed out, her cry ending in a gurgle of water. Zarne spun and once again grabbed the thief, yanking her out of the water and chopping at whatever had grabbed her. As the thief tumbled past him, Zarne finally saw what had attacked them as Annika's foe attempted to follow her. As soon as he saw his enemy he launched a vicious strike, and the skeleton that had risen from the sewer lost its skull to the constable's sword. Before that skeleton's crumbling bones even fell back into the water, the constable spun back to face his original attacker. Two quick cuts from his sword shattered that skeleton as well, sending it back into the water as little more than splintered bones.

"Zarne, behind you!" Annika exclaimed. The constable whirled again, but even as he did so a pair of magical bolts of energy slammed into his chest. Zarne staggered but refused to fall, hastily raising his sword to defend himself. Instead of skeletons, however, four men dressed in decaying black robes faced him, their faces covered with skeletal masks. Three of the cultists carried mundane short swords and daggers, but their apparent leader wielded a wicked looking, pitted scythe.

"You should never have come here, constable," the cult leader stated. "Now you must die."


	8. Out of the Frying Pan

She had never considered herself a fighter, but this time there was no way to escape the looming combat. For a brief instant Annika thought of taking the bronze rod from her belt, but Zarne's warning, coupled with her own fears of finding herself incinerated by another fireball, quickly made her forget the erratic magical item in favor of the dagger in her boot. By the time the thief had drawn her weapon, Zarne was already locked in vicious combat with three of the cultists, spinning his sword in a tight defensive arc to ward off the short swords and daggers wielded against him. Quickly Annika tried to race up to the constable's side, but the cult leader fixed her with a stern glare that stopped her in her tracks.

"Nerull's fear grips you," the scythe wielding priest snarled in a chilling voice. Annika felt her muscles tighten as he spoke, freezing her in place as if she was a statue. Frantically the thief tried to force her body to respond, but she could not even open her mouth to call for help. Helplessly the thief watched as the other cultists closed in on Zarne, praying that she could fight her way free of her paralysis before the constable was overtaken.

Whether he knew her predicament or not, Zarne paid Annika no mind as he concentrated on his three immediate attackers. Two of the cultists quickly tried to flank him on either side while the largest of the group lunged at him in a frontal attack, but even Annika could not believe how quickly the constable moved. Unable to draw his long sword back for a full swing in the narrow confines of the passage, Zarne simply exploded forward, ducking low under the short blades of the two attackers on his sides and ramming his shoulder into the cultist in front of him. The constable gave his initial target no time to recover; as the cultist fought to keep his balance and regain the wind blasted from his lungs, Zarne slammed the pommel of his sword straight up into the cultist's jaw with a sickening crack. Even as he did so, however, one of the other two cultists scored a hit of his own, stabbing his short sword into Zarne's shoulder and only narrowly missing the constable's neck.

"I could use a little help here!" Zarne shouted, whirling on the two cultists behind him. Desperately Annika tried to free herself from the priest's spell, but still her body remained rigid and immobile. She could only watch as Zarne barely managed to dodge out of the way of one cultist's dagger, stumbling and nearly falling into the knee deep sewage as he scrambled quickly to avoid his second attacker's short sword. The evasive moves cost the constable his balance and he fell back against one wall, but even as the short sword wielding cultist rushed in for the kill, Zarne shoved himself off of the wall with his own sword leading the way. The constable growled in pain as the cultist's blade found its way through his chain shirt and pierced his side, but nothing could stop the constable's momentum. The cultist's eyes shot wide as Zarne's blade plunged through his chest, driving far enough to punch through his back and chip the far wall as the two men fell across the passage. At the same moment, however, the priest of Nerull hurled a ray of sickening green energy at the constable, impacting squarely in the constable's chest as he tried to tear his blade free of his attacker. Zarne stumbled back with the impact, but Annika could not see immediately what the ray had done to her companion. One cultist had fallen, but Zarne's first target was already struggling back to his feet, holding his broken jaw with one hand as he turned on Zarne.

"Finish him!" the cult leader ordered. His two remaining subordinates rushed in to obey their leader's command, but Zarne, despite the fact that he suddenly struggled under the weight of his own blade and armor, somehow managed to fend off his two opponents as he staggered backwards to the thief. Behind them, the cult leader whispered a prayer to his dark god to guide his weapon. Already hard pressed by his two attackers, Zarne would never be able to take on the priest as well.

Annika's taut muscles suddenly relaxed. The thief nearly fell forward as she was suddenly able to move again, but managed to catch her balance and whirled on the priest. The scythe wielding priest lunged past her before she could get to him, his pitted weapon slashing between his two cultists and slamming into Zarne's side before she could stop him. Zarne screamed in pain as the weapon opened a deep wound in his side, but Annika forced his injuries from her mind as she collided with the death priest and shoved her dagger to the hilt into his side. The cult leader howled in agony, but instead of falling to the injury, he whirled on the young thief. The haft of the priest's scythe nearly knocked Annika senseless as it crashed into her temple, sending a bright spray of colors across her vision as she tumbled backward. She felt her blade pull free of her momentarily weakened grip, but through the swirls of light she had no idea where her weapon had fallen.

"You'll pay for that, child!" the priest shrieked furiously. Annika's vision cleared in time to see the cult leader already swinging his scythe forward, but thankfully the narrow confines hampered his attacks as much as it did Zarne's. The tip of the scythe bit into the wall only an inch from the thief's head as the cult leader tried to swing in the tight passage. Quickly Annika scrambled out of the way of the pitted, curved blade, seeing with horror that her only dagger was still embedded in the priest's side.

"Zarne! Zarne, help me!" Annika screamed, ducking under another tight arc of the priest's scythe.

"I'm a little busy right now!" Zarne snapped in reply. Annika glanced back to the constable, to see Zarne barely holding his own against the two remaining cultists as they hacked away at his defenses. Frantically Annika dodged out of the way of another of the priest's attacks, then desperately yanked her rod free of her belt.

"I wonder what this does!" the thief screamed, pointing the rod at the priest. The cult leader was suddenly lined in purple fire, but within a heartbeat both Annika and the priest realized that the flames did nothing more than illuminate him. Annika glanced at the rod for a moment, but then looked back up to the death priest.

"Good try," he said simply. Annika scrambled back out of the way of another swing of the scythe as she smacked the rod against the palm of her hand, praying that she would knock a far more useful effect out of the metal.

"I wonder what this does!" she shouted again. The priest hesitated, almost ready to spring out of the way, but for a moment nothing seemed to happen. With a cruel smile that somehow showed even through his skull mask, the cult leader raised his scythe and advanced slowly on the cornered thief.

A low rumbling began to echo through the passage, freezing all five combatants where they stood. The rumbling rapidly escalated to a deafening roar, and within moments a wall of water came hurtling around a last intersection on a direct course for the passage's occupants.

* * *

"It will cost over a hundred pieces of gold just to replace the burned sails and rigging, to say nothing of the cost of labor and the fact that the main mast may be irreparably damaged."

Evgeny simply stared up at the main mast of the _Narval_ in dismay, squinting his eyes in the midday sun to see the top of the charred structure. The rigging could possibly be replaced in a matter of a week or so, if his crew worked from dawn to dusk to complete the work, but if the mast itself was badly damaged the _Narval_ could end up in the Tierwaal repair docks for the entire summer. For the moment, Lev and Saveli were climbing to the top of the mast to survey the damage that the thief had caused the previous night with her fireball. The only positive out of the whole night was that none of his crew had been seriously injured in the fire.

"At least a week to repair it all," Evgeny muttered, voicing his problems. Standing next to him, the ship's quartermaster, Miroslav, nodded in agreement.

"At least a week," the wiry, gray haired man concurred. "Maybe more. And if the main mast is charred through…"

"Don't remind me," Evgeny grumbled with a disgusted shake of his head. "Think of all the money we're losing. The captain already lost a shipment of grain to southern Tourant because of this."

"The crew is getting anxious to sail," Miroslav added. "One or two of them are talking of signing onto another ship. Even a week in port is a cut into their pay that they don't want."

"I'm aware of that," Evgeny stated dismally. The first mate watched his sailors as they began their inspection of the main mast for another moment before finally turning to the quartermaster. "What about the girl?"

"She disappeared," Miroslav said with a shrug. "That thief, Bartel, says he doesn't know where she is, but that he's still looking for her."

"We should be taking the money out of his hide," Evgeny snarled. "I would say he's hiding her, except that he came to us."

"These thieves and brigands, they have no sense of honor, no loyalty to each other," Miroslav stated. "He wants thirty gold for the girl. He'll find her, or at least try to."

"And how much can we get for her in Jhaeward?" Evgeny inquired. Duchy Jhaeward, one of the two duchies on the large islands just east of the Utrecht Peninsula, would only take two days to reach under full sail, and the many brothels and lecherous aristocrats there were always in search of new girls for their stables. In the time it took to repair the _Narval_ and get underway, the girl could be put to use on the ship in one way or another.

"Not enough to pay for all the damage she has caused," Miroslav answered.

"I am aware of that," Evgeny said. Miroslav shrugged again.

"Possibly between twenty and fifty gold," the quartermaster answered. "We will need to shop her around a little, find someone with a taste for her before we sell her. The brothels will likely only pay minimum price for her, as they will need to train and discipline her."

"At least we'll get some compensation for her, after what she's done," Evgeny said. The first mate paused for a moment, again considering the fire damage to the _Narval_. "And if she did this for someone else, I want to know about it. That Mardanian captain, Colbert, seemed to pick up our grain shipment a bit too quickly."

"You think he hired the girl to sabotage our ship?" Miroslav asked.

"I've seen it done before," Evgeny stated simply. The first mate opened his mouth to continue, but a low rumbling caught his attention somewhere behind him, towards the docks.

"What is that?" Miroslav asked quietly, turning to try to find the source of the noise. Evgeny said nothing as he continued to scan the docks. The rumbling sounded like a wave, or some sort of sudden rush of water…

A gout of filthy water suddenly shot out of one of the half submerged sewer drains, throwing a foul smelling mist into the air as it churned the harbor. As the sudden, inexplicable deluge ended, two figures washed out of the sewer pipe and into the water.

"I will never figure this city out," Miroslav said. "Is that how they clean their sewers?"

"I have no idea," Evgeny said, shrugging as he watched one of the two figures fight her way to the surface. For a moment the first mate wondered why the girl looked familiar to him, but his eyes went wide as he saw the bronze rod in her hand. "That's her!" Evgeny exclaimed, hardly believing his luck. "Hextor's Blade, that's her!"

* * *

If he had simply fallen off a pier into the harbor, it would have been difficult enough to keep afloat with his chain shirt. Now, it was close to impossible.

Zarne barely managed to break the surface of the churning water, desperately gasping for air before the weight of his armor could drag him back into the depths. Already weakened by a half dozen wounds and the cult leader's ray of enfeeblement, the constable could not keep himself afloat. Still he refused to surrender, kicking violently towards the sky and clawing at his chain shirt in a vain attempt to peel off the cumbersome armor. With his heavy cloak already beginning to wrap around him, impeding his movement even more, Zarne quickly found himself sinking to the bottom of the bay.

Something suddenly yanked his cloak away, freeing the constable from its added weight and hindrance. Still fighting with his armor, Zarne at least found his legs free enough to kick for the surface. A heartbeat later he could feel hands wrapping around his chest, and a cloud of dark hair momentarily blinded him. With a final, powerful kick as some measure of his strength returned, Zarne broke the water's surface, inhaling a lungful of air and choking on the salty spray of harbor water around him.

"Zarne! Zarne, are you all right?" Annika asked frantically, still holding him afloat. Zarne tried to answer, but found himself unable to do anything more than choke on a mouthful of seawater.

"Fine!" the constable finally managed to gasp out. "What… what happened?"

"I think that was the rod!" Annika answered, shouting over the last splashes of her conjured wave. Zarne freed himself from her grasp as he turned angrily on her.

"I told you not to use that thing!" Zarne snapped. Without Annika's support, the constable nearly slipped beneath the water again until the thief caught him in a tight embrace and forced him back above the surface.

"What did you want me to do, let them kill us?" Annika retorted, shouting even though she was less than an inch from his face. "I didn't exactly want to use the thing, you know! But that priest was about to scythe my head off!"

Zarne snarled in fury, but he found himself unable to refute the girl's statement. After losing his strength, he had almost been overwhelmed by the two cultists. Annika had fared no better against the priest. The thief's wave had probably been the only thing that had saved the two of them. At any rate, it had seemed to wash a majority of the filth from the pair. While he would likely need to burn his clothes, take a week's worth of baths he could not afford, and find some way to remove the stink from his chain shirt, his sudden landing in the harbor had at least started the process.

"Just get us to shore," Zarne grumbled, not entirely willing to admit that Annika's use of the rod was justified. Almost on cue, a voice sounded from across the water to his left.

"You in water! We come get you!" a sailor was yelling, perched on the edge of a small skiff rowing its way towards them. Silently Zarne thanked Pelor; although his strength was returning, the constable had not relished the thought of trying to climb up the algae covered pier supports or the rocky dock walls. "You wait there!"

"Thank the heavens!" Annika exclaimed, waving to the skiff with a huge smile on her face. She turned to Zarne as she laughed. "Thank Pelor they're here. You're heavy!"

"Funny," Zarne muttered as the skiff closed the last yards to them. "Very funny."

"Thank you so much!" Annika said as the skiff arrived. Zarne looked up to the man on the end of the boat as well, a somewhat thin young man with a mouth full of yellowed teeth and a mop of unruly black hair. "My friend is hurt, and we need to get back on shore quickly!"

"We help, we help!" the sailor exclaimed enthusiastically. The accent was undeniably Urhalian, as were the man's features. The sailor reached down to the water, but instead of helping Zarne into the boat, he grabbed hold of Annika to pull her up first with the help of an older, gray haired comrade.

"Ladies first!" the young sailor explained happily to the constable's questioning look. The two men disappeared back into the skiff with Annika, while another man reached over the side. Zarne took the man's hand, but as he looked up he suddenly realized that he was facing the same man that had confronted him the previous night. The barrel chested Urhalian showed a broad grin through his wild black beard as he tightened his grip on the constable's hand and began to pull him out of the water.

Zarne wasted no more time. The constable immediately stopped treading water and instead tried to dive back under the surface. The Urhalian refused to let go of the constable's hand, a move Zarne had anticipated. Tightening his own grip and using the weight of his chain mail to pull him down, Zarne could already see the boat listing to his side as the rest of the Urhalians tried to hold onto their leader or see through the water to grab the constable. Zarne nearly smiled as he saw exactly what he expected, and tugged even harder on the sailor's arm. With a final effort, the skiff tipped over, spilling Annika and the startled crew into the water.

Zarne thought the sudden shock of being capsized would have cost the Urhalian his grip, but as the constable tried to kick away in an attempt to find Annika the sailor pulled back on his arm hard enough to nearly wrench his shoulder out of its socket. Zarne spun back on the Urhalian in time to receive a vicious punch to his face, turning the water in front of him instantly red as his nose was flattened under the impact. With his head spinning, Zarne somehow landed a counter of his own, forgoing any sort of fighting etiquette and stabbing his fingers into the larger sailor's eye. The Urhalian let go as he grabbed at his face, his scream of pain coming out in a stream of bubbles. Zarne watched the Urhalian for only a moment as the sailor quickly swam to the surface before turning and searching for Annika.

The thief crashed into the constable a second later, evading the gray haired sailor that had originally helped her into the skiff. With much of his strength finally returning, Zarne launched himself past the thief and landed a solid punch just below the Urhalian's belt, doubling him over instantly in pain. Swiftly Zarne kicked off of the sailor to propel himself away from the sailors, grabbing Annika as he did so and swimming as quickly as his armor and equipment would allow for the shore. Annika kept up easily with him as they left the Urhalian sailors rapidly behind, until the constable managed to find his way to one of the many landings along the harbor jetty for rowboats and skiffs. As the two dragged themselves out of the water, Annika turned to Zarne, and started to laugh.

"What?" Zarne asked. "What's so funny?"

"You!" Annika exclaimed. "You have to be the dirtiest fighter I have ever seen!"

"What are you talking about?" Zarne asked, turning a confused expression on the girl.

"I saw you!" Annika said, still laughing. "First you poked one in the eye, then you hit the other right in-"

"You don't get points for fighting fair," Zarne cut in. Annika continued to laugh. "Come on," Zarne ordered, grabbing the thief by the wrist. "Let's get out of here before those guys figure out where we went."

* * *

His investigation had begun well. He had found the home of Zarne van Erison after only a few questions to the Chief Constable of Tierwaal, and Annika's current residence in a tiny attic corner of a filthy boarding house had been similarly easy to discern. After that, however, it had become next to impossible to find anything more about them.

It certainly had not been for a lack of trying. Gerrit had crossed the city at least twice, using the daylight hours to traverse Haven-straat first, then some of the taverns and inns on the less rowdy Zilveren-straat on the western side of Tierwaal where Zarne was known to frequent. For all of his searching during the day, however, the pair refused to show themselves. For all of the rumors he had heard of two gangs and the crew of an Urhalian merchant vessel hunting them, however, Gerrit found the couple's disappearance to be no surprise.

Gerrit turned to the west window in his work shop, looking out over the thatched roofs of the Magie-Vierkant and the rest of the city beyond it as he pondered his next step. Gerrit was a wizard, not a constable or magistrate. Arcane research was his forte, not investigation.

Gerrit turned away from his window, looking over his work shop for a long moment as he rubbed at the neatly trimmed beard on his chin. The wizard's lab was a far cry from Sanna's chaotic work shop; magical tomes were neatly stacked on shelves along the north wall, while his benches and beakers were spotlessly cleaned and components were stockpiled with meticulous order. Unlike Sanna, Gerrit was systematic and methodical, and certainly a far cry more cautious than his companion.

Gerrit finally turned to a large mirror of polished silver set against the south wall of his work shop, studying the ornate gold trim of the object for a long moment as he considered his next move. The mirror would be the focus of a scrying spell, but the wizard was hesitant to cast such a spell to concentrate on anything inside the city of Tierwaal. Annika and Zarne would be little trouble to track down on their own, but the population of wizards in Tierwaal, and indeed any city inside the boundaries of Utrecht, added many complications to the spell. The simple number of runes and wards cast over buildings and properties meant that, at the very least, his spell could be blocked, and at worst, he could be blinded or even killed by a protective ward that he could inadvertently trip. Still, magic was his best bet to find the thief and her stolen rod, and within moments Gerrit had cast his spell of scrying.

For a long moment the highly polished surface of the mirror revealed nothing more than Gerrit's reflection as the wizard carefully wove his spell around the wards and sigils that covered many of Tierwaal's buildings. Finally, his reflection disappeared in a growing haze of smoke, giving way to a dark, open room of some sort. Little was discernable through the murk for the moment save Annika and her stolen magic item. The girl was helping her companion ease down against a wall of some sort, and even though he was partially concealed by the indistinct image Gerrit could tell that Zarne had been injured somehow.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Annika asked as she knelt in front of the beleaguered constable. Her voice, barely audible through the spell, was tinged with concern as she examined the worst of her partner's injuries.

"First thieves, then cultists, then Urhalians," Zarne grumbled as he too tried to see the worst of the vicious puncture in his side. "Is there anyone in this city you haven't gotten angry with you yet?"

"The cultists weren't my fault!" Annika protested. The thief tried to continue in her defense, but Zarne held up a hand for her to stop.

"I know, I know," the constable said wearily. "It's been a long day, I'm soaked, I smell terrible, I've been beaten up repeatedly, and now I'm spending the night in some gods forsaken warehouse. Not exactly the day I was hoping for."

"A warehouse?" Gerrit repeated, although the two had no chance of hearing him. Quickly the wizard strained his eyes as he examined the image a second time, trying to locate any identifying marks in the dimly lit building.

"Are you sure no one will find us here?" Annika asked. Zarne shrugged.

"As sure as I can be," the constable answered. "And I know the person that owns this warehouse. He won't give us trouble if he does find us here."

"I hope you're right," Annika asked, moving slightly closer to the constable. She opened her mouth and seemed to speak again, but the audible components of Gerrit's spell suddenly failed.

"Oh no," the wizard said. Before Gerrit could respond to the sudden assault on his spell, the image in the mirror rapidly shifted to swirling crimson flames. Quickly the wizard jumped away from the mirror, taking cover behind the nearest table only a heartbeat before the mirror itself shattered and a tiny gout of crimson fire erupted from the frame. As the pieces of the mirror crashed to the ground and the fire devolved into a faint pall of sulfurous smoke, Gerrit stood up and took stock of the expensive mishap.

"Another mirror, cast right into the Abyss," the wizard grumbled. "This is getting costly."

After another moment spent examining the ruins of his mirror, Gerrit turned and stalked out of his workshop, resigning himself to another round of the city. His only consolation was that he had at least narrowed his search down to the warehouses of Haven-straat.

As Gerrit disappeared down the steps of his tower, Espen, shrouded by his cloak of invisibility and held aloft outside the work shop's north facing window by his boots of levitation, slowly smiled. Gerrit may not have had the connections to discover which merchant may have employed Zarne van Erison in the past, but Espen had more than enough resources to track down the constable and his new ward.


	9. Into the Fire

**VIII**

"It's getting a little chilly in here."

"Well, we are still soaking wet," Zarne observed, watching as Annika stamped her feet and rubbed her arms to warm herself. The constable was also on the verge of shivering, but for the moment he was simply too exhausted to keep himself warm. "Do me a favor and see if there are any blankets, or tarps, or anything here that we can use to keep warm."

"I thought you didn't want me stealing anything," Annika said, a sarcastic tone to her voice as she turned a smile to her protector.

"We're not stealing, we're borrowing," Zarne grumbled, not in the mood for jokes. "Now look around and see if you can find something."

"I'm stealing on the orders of a constable," Annika said, a touch of humor to her voice as she disappeared behind the boxes stacked high in the warehouse. "How times have changed."

Zarne ignored the thief as he simply leaned back against the boxes where he had originally fallen, closing his eyes momentarily as he tried to ignore the thousands of aches and pains in his body. He was beginning to feel like one large bruise after the tribulations of the day.

"I'm getting too old for this," Zarne grumbled, carefully removing his tunic and examining his chain shirt. Where the priest of Nerull had hit him, the chain links had been distorted or even broken in places, requiring repairs that would cost him more than a few silver once he was even able to find a smith to make the repairs. The blood staining his tunic and armor, however, was a clear reminder of the fact that he had suffered a serious injury. Slowly, wincing in pain as he aggravated the wound with the jagged ends of a few broken rings, Zarne pulled his chain shirt over his head and dropped it to the ground beside him.

The wound in his side was more serious than he had first thought, but for the moment there was nothing he could do for the vicious puncture except try to bandage it somehow. Shaking his head in dismay at the injury, the constable picked up his ruined tunic and gingerly dabbed at the corners of the wound, trying to wipe enough blood away to make a more detailed assessment.

"I couldn't find…" Annika started, coming back into view around the boxes with a single canvas tarp in her hands. She stopped as she saw the wound, her mouth dropping open in shock and a definite hint of revulsion.

"Yes, I'm fine," Zarne said, before she could even voice her concern. Annika hurried to his side, dropping to her knees as she examined the puncture herself.

"I… this… are you sure?" the thief stammered, pushing the constable's hands away from the wound.

"Yes, I'm sure," Zarne said, although he was not truly sure of the answer. At any rate, Annika was no priest or healer, and the last thing he needed was for her to continue poking at the injury in some misguided attempt to help him. To his surprise, however, the girl reached inside her shirt and withdrew the tiny jar of ointment that he had given her that morning.

"I… I didn't think my leg really needed it, this morning," Annika explained, her cheeks reddening slightly as she tried to explain why she still had the jar. "I thought, you know… maybe we'd need it later? I mean, now?"

"Good thinking," Zarne said, smiling faintly. Annika's nervous smile broadened into a full grin, and quickly the thief opened the jar. For a moment she stared into the jar, but then she simply tilted it enough to pour out the water that had collected on top of the ointment. "I can take care of it," Zarne said, holding his hand out for the salve.

"No, no, I'll do it," Annika offered hastily, almost slapping the constable's hand away from the jar. Before he could say anything further, Annika had already scooped out a bit of the ointment.

"Okay, but just be… _ow_!" Zarne snapped, pulling away from the thief as Annika made contact with the wound. Annika drew back quickly. "Be careful!" the constable ordered, still wincing in pain.

"I barely touched you," Annika pointed out, leaning forward again to continue her work. Zarne gritted his teeth again as the thief began applying a heavy dab of the salve to his wound. "I could only find the one tarp," Annika said as she worked. "I guess we'll have to share it for the night."

"I guess," Zarne said, noting that the thief seemed just a bit too eager about spending the night under a single blanket. Anything more he was about to say, however, was cut short as she managed to aggravate his wound even further. Zarne bit back a cry of pain and forced an agonized smile to his lips as Annika dropped back slightly to examine her work. The thief's proud smile faded slightly as she saw the constable fighting to keep his agony in check. "Good job," Zarne forced out, trying to placate the girl's desire to be helpful.

"I hope that stuff works as well as it did this morning," Annika said, tracing the barely visible scar across her cheek where her gash had been. Zarne shrugged.

"It couldn't make things any worse, at any rate," the constable said, pulling his shirt back on over his head. As he settled back against the crates, Annika dropped down on his uninjured side and pulled the tarp across them. The thief tried to pull herself up against the constable, but Zarne withdrew slightly.

"I won't bite," the thief said, resting her head on his chest as she forced herself next to him.

"I didn't think you would," Zarne said. Annika giggled slightly as she turned to face the constable.

"I was serious when I asked if any of the wheelwright's sons were available," she said.

"I suppose you had a certain wheelwright's son in mind," the constable guessed. Annika smiled slightly as she pulled herself closer.

"He's pretty handy with a sword," the thief said, running a hand through his hair. "And he's a respected officer of the law."

"I see," Zarne said. "I suppose he's also almost twice your age?"

"I don't see why that's a problem," Annika said, leaning in to kiss the constable. Zarne gently pushed her away. "What? What's wrong?"

"Annika, you don't want me," Zarne said.

"Yes I do," Annika countered. "I think I would know if I didn't."

"No, you don't," Zarne said. "It's just the moment, that's all. We've been through a lot today, and neither of us are thinking straight right now."

"I am thinking straight!" Annika protested. "I mean, I've spent the better part of two days with you now, and no one has ever been this nice to me!"

"That's the point," Zarne said. "All you have to compare me to is Bartel, or Espen, or someone else like that. So what happens when someone who's as nice as me, but younger and better looking, comes along?"

"Zarne, I love you," Annika said, trying desperately to convince him. Zarne shook his head.

"You're exhausted, and I'm exhausted," the constable said, deciding to put off the argument for another day. Annika sighed in frustration, realizing the evasion for what it was. "Let's both get some sleep, and once we get rid of that rod of yours, then we can discuss this."

"At least… at least let me stay close to you tonight," Annika requested, forcing herself underneath the constable's arm. Reluctantly Zarne allowed the thief to rest her head on his chest again, but any concerns he may have had about the girl's motives disappeared as she fell almost instantly asleep in his arms.

* * *

"And you are certain the girl is inside."

"I would not have come to you if I was not," Espen said, standing at the edge of the pier where the _Narval_ was docked. The warehouse where Zarne and Annika were hiding was amazingly close to the Urhalian merchant vessel, but the assassin doubted Evgeny or his crew would have ever found the pair there if not for his help. "Annika and Zarne took shelter there just this evening, but I doubt they will remain in one place for long. The constable is smart enough to keep on the move. You must strike now if you wish to capture her."

"I still think this feels like a trap," one of the other sailors, Miroslav by name, said quietly. "How did you know we were looking for her?"

"It was very difficult to conceal that fireball from anyone on the docks last night," Espen stated. The assassin despised using the Urhalian language, as he considered it crude and guttural compared to Utrecht, but he was fluent in the language while the Urhalians continually tripped over their broken Utrecht and had difficulty understanding more than the most basic vocabulary. "I thought you might pay a finder's fee for information about her location."

"I see," Evgeny said flatly. "And what were you expecting in payment?"

"Ten gold is all I ask," Espen replied, smiling slightly as he straightened out his simple black tunic. Evgeny's eyes narrowed slightly as he considered the offer. Espen could have cared less about the money; to him, ten gold was barely worth the trouble of simply walking from the Magie Vierkant to Haven-straat. But the sudden appearance of a dozen or more Urhalian sailors in the warehouse would throw Zarne and Annika into a panic. Add in Bartel, along with two of his muggers, who were already halfway to the warehouse, and the inside of the building would turn into mass chaos. In the middle of such confusion, Espen would likely have little trouble at all stealing the rod of wonder that Annika had found without the backlash associated with killing a constable.

"Ten gold," Evgeny repeated. The first mate turned back to Miroslav for a moment, conversing quietly for a moment about the price. Finally, Evgeny turned back to the assassin.

"Five gold," the Urhalian said. Espen nearly laughed.

"I suppose that will have to do, considering I have already parted with my information," the assassin said, reining in his mirth and trying to inject just the right amount of melodrama into his voice. Evgeny stared at him for a long moment, trying to read something in the assassin's face, but finally reached into his belt pouch and removed a handful of gold and silver coins. The Urhalian counted out the fee in his hand, eyeing Espen suspiciously as he did so, then slowly dropped the coins into Espen's outstretched hand. Espen smiled at the Urhalian as he accepted his payment, not even bothering to count the assortment of silver and gold in his hand to be certain of the fee.

"Let's go," Evgeny finally snarled, leading his men to the warehouse with a curt wave of his hand. Espen watched them go for a moment, even waving as Evgeny shot a last, suspicious glance over his shoulder, then turned and started to the front of the warehouse.

* * *

"You don't think Espen was lying to us, do you?"

"Quiet, Niels," Bartel ordered, keeping his voice low as he crept up to the western side of the warehouse. The gang leader had not been happy with the prospect of taking on van Erison and Annika himself; he was, after all, a leader, and should have been able to trust Tiede and Niels with this job. But the prospect of cutting his fees to Espen in half was enough to warrant his personal attention, especially with the Broken Harpoon gone for at least half of the spring trading season. "Just keep a look out for any constables or Annika."

"Something just feels wrong about this," Tiede added quietly, glancing nervously around the docks. Bartel turned on the mugger abruptly, grabbing the front of his shirt.

"Well if it hadn't been for the two of you losing Annika earlier, we wouldn't be in this bind!" the gang leader snapped, fighting with all his might to keep his voice down to a whisper. "Now keep your mouth shut, and when we get inside, find the girl and the rod!"

"Sorry," Tiede said timidly, flinching away from the irate gang leader. Bartel hesitated a moment longer, letting his threat sink in, before turning back to the lock on the warehouse door. It had been some time since he had been forced to pick a lock, but the gang leader smiled as he found himself quickly unlocking the door with a few deft twists of his picks. Slowly Bartel nudged the door open, wincing slightly as it creaked on its hinges. Without turning back to the two muggers Bartel waved them forward, watching for a moment as the two disappeared into the shadows to search for Annika in the recesses of the dark warehouse. Bartel hesitated a moment, listening to the darkness, but if the two were inside, they were not making any noise. Finally Bartel started into the darkness, working his way noiselessly through the alleys of crates inside the warehouse to find his wayward conscript and the magical rod she had discovered.

Niels suddenly appeared in front of him, startling Bartel into action. The gang leader's daggers were in his hands and ready to throw before he recognized his underling. Bartel shot the younger mugger a furious glance for the sudden appearance as he sheathed his weapons. Niels shrugged apologetically, then gestured to his left. As Bartel realized what he was signaling, the gang leader began to smile. Silently he followed after Niels as the mugger led him through a narrow passage between two rows of boxes, joining Tiede at the edge of a large opening.

"There they are," Tiede whispered with a broad smile, pointing to the open space. Bartel looked past the two muggers, forcing himself to stifle a laugh as he saw Annika curled up against Zarne underneath a makeshift blanket.

"Knock him out, then grab her and the rod and let's get out of here," Bartel directed, turning back to Tiede. "And be quick about it."

Tiede nodded eagerly and drew his sap as he began to creep forward, but before he had taken more than a step the large doors to the waterfront slammed open with a violent crash.

* * *

He had almost fallen asleep when the sound of splintering wood brought him immediately back to his senses.

Zarne leapt to his feet in a heartbeat, nearly throwing Annika to the ground as he reached for his long sword. The constable's hand closed around nothing but air even as Zarne remembered losing the blade to the bottom of the harbor, but the lost weapon was forgotten immediately as the constable found himself confronted by at least a dozen furious Urhalian sailors.

"Bartel!" Annika exclaimed suddenly. The constable spun quickly even as Annika rushed past him, in time to see a stunned Bartel, along with Tiede and Niels, staring in shock at the sailors' sudden appearance. Before he could even react to the double threat, Annika had stumbled back into Zarne, nearly knocking him over as she desperately searched for a way out. "What do we do?"

"I'm pretty much out of options," Zarne said, glancing from Bartel to the Urhalians and back. He could try breaking through the thieves, but the time he would lose fighting them off would allow the sailors more than enough time to catch up to the pair.

"Give us girl, or we kill you!" the barrel chested sailor in the lead demanded, pointing angrily to Annika. His eye was still swollen and partially closed from Zarne's earlier attack on him. "She pay for burn ship!"

"Give me the rod, Annika," Bartel ordered, taking a step forward and drawing his daggers. Annika pushed herself behind Zarne as the two groups advanced on the pair, desperately searching for a way out of the closing vise.

The two groups seemed to lunge forward at the same time, ready to pin Annika between them. Zarne grabbed the thief by the wrist and dove forward, barely avoiding the grasp of one sailor and landing a wild punch to Bartel's gut as he raced past the gang leader. Tiede's sap whistled dangerously close above the constable's head as he rushed past them, but the mugger was little more than an afterthought as Zarne dragged Annika forward. One sailor had managed to catch the girl by the arm, and for a moment Annika screamed in pain as she was stretched between the two.

"Let go of me!" Annika shouted, kicking wildly at the Urhalian that had caught her. One kick landed solidly on the sailor's shin, shocking him enough to let go of the girl and send both her and Zarne crashing forward through a short stack of flimsy crates. Zarne slammed to the ground in a shower of broken pottery and wooden splinters, losing his grip on Annika for only a moment as he cursed and shouted in pain from the wound in his side and a long, thankfully shallow slash across one of his arms from a pottery shard. As the constable stumbled back to his feet, he heard Annika scream, "I wonder what this does!"

The effect was more comical than anything else. Six Urhalians, Bartel, and Niels all dove for cover, nearly running into each other in their hurry to get out of the path of whatever effect the rod might summon. As for the rod itself, the only thing it seemed to do was conjure forth a jet of foul smelling but otherwise harmless bubbles.

"I hate that thing!" Bartel exclaimed, jumping back to his feet and waving his hand furiously through a number of the bubbles. Annika backed up a step as the Urhalians also recovered from their initial shock.

"Annika, look out!" Zarne shouted, suddenly seeing Tiede rushing along the top of a stack of crates towards her. Annika turned and brought the rod to bear, but Tiede was a step faster as he dove off of the top of the crates and slammed into the smaller thief. The two tumbled to the ground in a flailing mass of arms and legs, and as they rolled across the stone floor the rod clattered off of the stone as it slid free of Annika's grasp.

The barrel chested Urhalian was back suddenly, launching a powerful right hook at Zarne in an attempt to take the constable quickly out of the fight. Zarne dropped under the punch and scrambled away from a second sailor's kick, already realizing that he could never hope to stand against a dozen angry Urhalians and Bartel's little crew. With a renewed burst of energy, Zarne shot across the room after the one thing that might allow both him and Annika to escape their irate attackers. Bartel, seeming to recognize Zarne's destination, threw himself into a full sprint, neatly dodging between two sailors and diving across the floor in his attempt to beat Zarne to the rod slowly rolling across the floor.

* * *

"This is priceless."

Sitting just above the wild melee on the center rafter of the warehouse, Espen could not help but smile at the spectacle he had helped to engineer. Annika, only just untangling herself from Tiede, was quickly becoming trapped in a ring of angry Urhalians, while Bartel and Zarne both reached the rod of wonder at the same time. The two men rolled to their knees with one hand on the rod; Bartel landed a quick jab in Zarne's face, crushing the constable's nose, while Zarne punched the gang leader in the throat. Bartel stumbled to the ground, wheezing for breath, but somehow the gang leader managed to hold onto the rod and drag Zarne back down with him.

"Zarne! Zarne, help me!" Annika screamed. Espen glanced back to the terrified girl as she struggled futilely in the arms of a pair of sailors even as Tiede writhed on the ground, holding his groin in agony.

"Let go!" Zarne shouted furiously, kicking Bartel one more time. The gang leader relinquished his grip and rolled away on the ground, allowing the constable to turn the rod on the Urhalians. "I wonder what this does!"

The newest magic was as effective as it was bizarre. A torrent of tiny, glittering gemstones shot out of the rod's tip, pelting the Urhalians and even Annika with enough force to send everyone scrambling for cover. As surprised by the shower of gems as anyone else, Zarne was frozen for a moment in shock, just enough time for Niels to crash into him from the side.

"I'd almost love to sit here and watch all night," Espen said to himself, suppressing a chuckle as he dropped off of the rafter and glided to the ground. With his cloak of invisibility, he easily avoided the worst of the melee and came up next to Zarne as he and Niels fought over the rod.

"Zarne!" Annika screamed again. Still wrestling with Niels, the constable swung the rod quickly.

"I wonder what this does!" the constable shouted, just as Niels jerked his arms up back. A bolt of lightning thundered out of the rod, throwing almost everyone to the ground as it blasted a hole through the thatched roof of the warehouse.

The lightning bolt quickly reinforced to Espen that he needed to act quickly; both the rod and its current wielders were far too erratic. The assassin lunged forward quickly, grabbing the tip of the rod as Niels and Zarne once again tried to rip it free of each other's grasp. Quickly Espen cocked one arm to throw a punch in Zarne's face, but before he could strike something jerked his cloak down and to the side.

"What in the Abyss?" Bartel asked, standing almost directly behind Espen. The gang leader had drawn one of his daggers to attack van Erison, but somehow he had caught the corner of Espen's cloak. The assassin's eyes went wide as Bartel tried to yank his blade free of the fabric.

"No! Get off, you idiot!" Espen screamed. It was too late; Bartel ripped his dagger through the cloak, shredding both the cloth and the magic that had had been imbued in it. As the cloak ripped, Espen winked back into view, startling Bartel, Zarne, and Niels.

"Espen?" Bartel and Zarne both asked at the same time. Niels hesitated only a moment, staring in shock at the suddenly visible assassin, before turning and punching Zarne in his already flattened nose. The constable stumbled back, relinquishing his grasp on the rod as he brought his hands to his face on reflex and leaving Niels in sole possession of the magical device. The young mugger clutched the rod to his chest as he backed away a step, a smile coming to his face as he looked down at the bronze rod.

"Give it to me, boy!" Espen snarled, forgetting Bartel's destruction of his magical cloak. Niels' smile faded instantly as he looked up at the assassin, but instead of acquiescing the mugger turned the rod on his antagonist.

"I wonder what this does!" Niels shouted. Espen dove immediately, seeking to avoid whatever harmful spell might issue from the item, but the move proved unnecessary. Five balls of brilliant light slowly puffed out of the end of the rod and floated to the ceiling, lighting the warehouse with their illumination. The Urhalians, Zarne, and Espen all hesitated for a moment as they watched the globes float to the ceiling, almost expecting the spheres to explode or ignite the roof of the building. Annika seemed to be the only one unconcerned with the globes of light; just as Niels turned away from the floating lights the thief slammed into him, knocking the mugger to the ground and the rod free of his hands. Espen turned immediately on the rod as it clattered along the floor, racing against Annika for the bar. The girl somehow managed to reach it first, diving across the floor and coming to one knee with the rod in her hands. Without a second's thought Espen launched himself at her, desperately trying to reach the girl before she could activate the erratic rod.

"I wonder what this does!" Annika shouted. Already in the air, Espen could do nothing more than brace himself for a fireball or something even more unpleasant, but as soon as she spoke the words Annika vanished. Espen hit the ground with uncharacteristic clumsiness, but his lapse of style was easily forgotten as he somehow managed to kick the rod into his own hands as he landed on his palms. Slowly the assassin stood up, turning over the bronze rod in his hands for a brief instant to admire the rod he had finally acquired.

He lost it a second later as Evgeny drove him back to the ground.

* * *

For a brief instant, she thought she had made Espen into a towering giant. That idea was dispelled as soon as the rod rang off of the stone, almost directly on top of her.

Annika reacted on reflex more than thought, dodging out of the way of the now enormous bronze rod as it bounced along the ground dangerously close to her. The rod, and everything else in the warehouse, was still its normal size, but Annika had been reduced to less than half a foot tall, making the rod seem like a falling tree. With a last burst of speed the thief threw herself clear of the rod, barely managing to avoid the magical device as it skipped only an inch over her head.

Espen suddenly crashed along the ground, kicking for the rod as he tried to regain his balance. The impact of his landing lifted Annika clear of the ground and threw her across the floor, bouncing off of the leg of one man and landing flat on her back. Gasping for breath and fighting off a wave of dizziness as her head banged off of the floor, the thief barely managed to scramble out of the way of her former gang and the Urhalians as they rushed across the room after Espen.

"Zarne! Zarne, where are you?" Annika screamed at the top of her lungs. Her voice seemed as small as she was, however, and not even the Urhalians that were nearly trampling her seemed to hear her call. Annika whirled around quickly, trying to locate the constable, and quickly found Zarne stumbling back to his feet and wiping the blood from his nose and mouth just beyond the fringe of the wild melee that had tightened around Espen and the rod bouncing along the ground.

"Annika!" Zarne shouted, rushing back into the fray. Annika screamed for him again, but the constable nearly stepped on her in his race to find her in the jumble of sailors and thieves.

"I'm right here! Zarne, look down!" Annika yelled, trying to chase after the constable as he plunged through the Urhalians. Espen and Bartel appeared from the fray even as Zarne disappeared into it, wrestling for control of the rod as the sailors quickly turned on them.

"I wonder what this does!" Bartel shouted, still trying to wrest the magical item away from the rival gang leader. A thick green mist issued out of the rod and surrounded Bartel, turning him instantly the same olive tone of the vapors. Espen could barely keep a straight face as Bartel rolled away, screaming in shock as he discovered his new pigmentation, but his amusement was shortlived as Zarne rammed his way through two Urhalians and practically overran the assassin. As the two tumbled to the ground, the bloodied constable somehow pried the rod free of Espen's grasp and tumbled back to his feet.

"I wonder what this does!" the constable shouted, turning the rod on the rapidly closing Urhalians. Once again everyone in the path of the rod tried to throw themselves out of the way, but there was no chance to escape the rod's newest effect. A deluge of rain suddenly poured down inside the buildings, instantly soaking the entire warehouse. Annika dodged wildly as the huge drops threatened to knock her to the ground, but the falling water quickly became a secondary concern as the thief found herself being swept away by the strong current.

"Stop using rod!" one of the Urhalians shrieked furiously as the rain abruptly ended. Annika only recognized the accent as she desperately tried to grab hold of the nearest stationary object, nearly tearing her hands open as she attempted to catch herself on a large, broken pottery shard. Annika let go of the sharp pottery and tried to swim against the current again, until she slammed back first into someone's foot.

"Then get back and give me the girl!" Zarne shouted. Annika looked up as she heard the voice, realizing that by some chance she had actually been carried right back to the constable.

"Give us rod!" the Urhalian shouted.

"You wanted the girl! The rod is mine!" Espen retorted.

"Girl is gone! Give us rod!" the Urhalian shot back, advancing again on Zarne. The constable started to back away, but not before the thief managed to climb on top of his boot and begin to pull herself up along the side of his pant leg.

"Get back or I'll use this damn rod again!" Zarne threatened, waving the rod in front of him. A splash of water arose from his left, and the constable nearly shook Annika free as he whirled top face the new threat. "I wonder what this does!"

Tiede tried to dodge out of the way of the rod as Zarne spun on him, but the mugger found himself far too late to avoid the effect. The mugger stopped in his tracks, doubled over for a moment, but as Tiede stood to his full height again, he found himself growing rapidly larger. The newly enlarged Tiede, at least half again as large as he had been a moment ago, broke into a broad grin as he turned again on Zarne.

"I hate this rod!" the constable snapped, quickly searching for a quick escape from the giant mugger. The constable backed up quickly, but Tiede managed to cover the remaining distance in a heartbeat and kicked Zarne in the stomach with enough force to launch him back into another stack of crates. The rod went flying out of his hand as the constable landed, but somehow Annika managed to keep her grip on Zarne's clothing. Dazed and nearly unconscious, Annika scrambled up his chest as Zarne groaned in pain and put on hand to his face.

_"Sido sidere sidi, obhaeresco!"_ someone chanted out quickly. Annika glanced around quickly, but the thief suddenly found herself stuck fast to Zarne's chest as a magical web descended on the warehouse. Although she could see nothing more than the constable's chain shirt, she could hear the Urhalians, Bartel, and Espen all shouting in confusion and shock at the newest magical deterrent.

"Zarne!" Annika shouted. "Zarne, can you hear me?"

"I am too old for this," Zarne grumbled, straining only for a moment against the web that pinned him to the shattered crates. The constable managed to look down, and Annika tried to smile the best she could as she saw his eyes go wide.

"Um, hi," Annika said with a faint smile, struggling for a moment to try and wave to him.

"What in the Abyss is going on here?" someone demanded angrily. Although she could not see the speaker, Annika was reasonably certain that the voice belonged to the same person that had cast the web spell.

"Give us girl!" one of the Urhalians shouted defiantly. Annika could feel the web shake as he tried to pull himself free. "Let us go, and give us girl!"

"That rod is mine!" Espen added angrily. Annika managed to turn her head enough to see a man with graying black hair and a full beard step forward, holding the rod in one hand as his sharp blue eye swept across the ruined warehouse.

"I hate to be the bearer of ill news, but this rod is not yours," the apparent wizard countered smoothly. "And even if it was, do you think I would give it back to you after this… this mess?"

"Give us girl!" the Urhalian shouted. "She burn our ship! She must pay!"

The mage hesitated for a moment as he looked around the room, but he seemed to pick out Annika quickly despite her reduced size and the webbing covering her. The wizard chuckled slightly before turning back to the Urhalian.

"If you planned on selling her, I doubt she will be of any value now," the mage said. "I doubt she is even six inches tall."

"Someone must pay for ship!" the Urhalian snarled. One of the other sailors snapped what could only be a warning in their own language.

"Since I feel somewhat responsible for letting this rod out in the first place, I will make… some compensation," the mage stated after a slight hesitation. "I will come see you in the morning to discuss the damage dealt to your ship. For now, I think I should take this rod safely away from the lot of you."

"Wait a minute!" Tiede exclaimed. "You're just going to leave us all here like this?"

"I don't think it's currently in my best interest to free you all," the mage explained with a smirk. "I mean, there are at least twenty of you, and only one of me."

"I don't suppose you could at least free the two of us?" Zarne inquired. "So maybe we'll have a chance to get away before the rest of them decided to kill us."

"Oh yes, I had almost forgotten about that," the mage said, turning to the trapped constable. "Your diminutive friend is not above reproach in this, and I have a certain… special way for her to pay me back for the gold I will be giving these sailors."

Annika suppressed a shudder of fear at the mage's plans for her, but before she could voice her concerns a wave of vertigo, very similar to the one she had felt when the rod had teleported her into the sewers, washed over her.


	10. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

"I hate this."

Annika stopped for a moment and looked around the bottom floor of Gerrit's tower, leaning on her broom as she surveyed her work. For the past week the thief had been put to work from dawn until dusk cleaning the tower, and it had taken four days just to try and restore some vague semblance of order to Sanna's personal work shop on the fourth floor. Each day started with a broom in her hands and ended with her collapsing into her bed, exhausted from hours upon hours of sweeping, mopping, polishing, and reordering.

Still, the thief had to admit to herself that it had almost been far, far worse. Gerrit had paid the Urhalian sailors over a hundred gold pieces to begin repairs on their ship, the _Narval_, restored Bartel to his normal color after forcing him to promise that he would give up any claims of ownership he may have over Annika, and forged an unspoken agreement with Espen that the rod, and Annika, would remain safe from his machinations. Although she was little more than a slave to Gerrit for the time being, he had replaced her shabby clothes with a drab but serviceable gray dress, and had quartered her in a small room on the first floor with a comfortable bed, and had even begun to teach her to read and write when time permitted. Although she vocally complained about the work she was forced to do, Annika had already found herself very thankful that Gerrit had taken her into his tower, even if it was under the auspices of being a slave.

A knock on the door brought the thief out of her reveries. Annika leaned her broom up against the wall and dusted off her hands as she went to the sturdy, iron bound door, quickly unlocking it and opening it up. The bright midmorning sun blinded her for a moment, but the thief's eyes went wide with joy as she finally saw the man standing just outside.

"Zarne!" Annika exclaimed, nearly jumping into the constable's arms as she wrapped him in a tight embrace. The thief kissed him on the cheek, then grabbed his hand and practically dragged him into the tower. "Where have you been for the past week?"

"Trying to fix my nose," Zarne replied, allowing her to pull him into the building. Annika stopped for a moment to examine the constable's nose.

"It looks fine," the thief said, although she could still clearly see the damage that had been inflicted. While a priest must have attended to the injury, Zarne's nose was now crooked and slightly flatter than it had been one week ago. Zarne nodded with skeptical smirk.

"And how are you getting along here?" the constable inquired, looking around the tower.

"He works me all the time," Annika complained. "I mean, I must have moved a thousand books all over this tower, and swept and mopped every floor twice, and reorganized Sanna's workshop, and now he wants me to learn how to cook!"

"Well, it is better than being sold in Duchy Jhaeward," Zarne pointed out. Annika paused for a moment, but finally nodded in agreement. "And I see Gerrit gave you something to replace the rags you were wearing."

"I keep tripping on the hem," Annika said, lifting the skirt slightly to show that it was just a little bit too long for her. "Every time I mop it gets wet, too."

"But other than the fact that you actually have to earn your keep here, everything's okay?" Zarne asked. Annika nodded as her smile returned to her face.

"He's teaching me to read," the thief replied.

"That's good," Zarne said. "At any rate, I just dropped by to let you know the _Narval_ left port this morning, so you don't have to worry about Evgeny and his men any more."

"Thank the gods," Annika said. "They're the reason I didn't try to come out and find you when Gerrit gave me free time. Them and Bartel."

"Bartel practically runs in the opposite direction every time he sees me now," Zarne said with a grin. "I think he's had enough of the two of us for a long time."

"That's good," Annika said with a relieved smile. The thief hesitated a moment, kicking at the ground, before continuing. "Zarne, I… I really want to thank you. For everything you did."

"Don't worry about it," Zarne said with an amused hake of his head. "I needed my nose flattened, anyway. Thought it was just a little too big."

"I'm serious, Zarne," Annika said, ignoring the joke. "And… I really meant what I said in the warehouse."

"Yeah, well, we'll see what happens about that," Zarne said. He smiled again. "But I bet, by the time next spring rolls around, you'll find some handsome, up and coming young mage and forget about old Zarne van Erison."

"I won't forget about you," Annika promised, taking a step closer to the constable. "I'll never forget everything you've done for me."

"Give it some time," Zarne said, keeping the girl at arms' length. Annika looked down at the ground, but nodded nonetheless.

"Okay," she agreed. Then she looked up again. "Gerrit said he'll give me a day off next week. Can you take me to dinner? On Zilveren-straat?"

"I see your tastes have moved up in the last week," Zarne said with a laugh. "We'll see. Now I have to get some things done, but I'll stop by towards week's end, and maybe we can discuss a dinner on Zilveren-straat then. Okay?"

"Okay," Annika agreed, walking Zarne back to the door. "Then I'll see you in a couple of days?"

"Yeah, I'll be back then," Zarne confirmed. Annika embraced the constable one more time, but before she could kiss him Zarne gently pushed her away. "You're persistent, I'll give you that," Zarne commented.

"Well, I guess I'll have to be," Annika said with a bit of a smile.

"Of course," Zarne said. "I'll see you at week's end."

"I'll be here," Annika promised. Zarne nodded, then turned and started into the Magie Vierkant. Annika hesitated a moment at the door, then shut it and turned back to her broom. "And besides," she said to the empty room as she resumed her work, "Annika van Erison has a nice ring to it."

* * *

God, that was sappy. But, it needed an ending, and beating my head against the computer screen wasn't knocking anything better out of the cranium. So now that the fluff is done(for the moment, anyway), time to to back to the DM's Guide...


End file.
